HP NetRAID 1Si Controller - Manual (Page 134)

Chapter 6 Capacity Expansion
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Partition and Format a Drive that Contains Windows NT
Sometimes it is desirable to have the network operating system reside on a disk
array. The advantage is that the NOS resides on a redundant drive.
Virtual Sizing can be used with a disk array that is used as the boot device and
also contains user data. The key limitation is that Windows NT only allows a FAT
boot partition size of 4 GB or less.
If the NOS and data need to be on a single array (and single logical drive), and
you want to allow for capacity expansion, you must create multiple partitions.
1. Create a FAT boot partition of 4 GB or less for the NOS, which becomes
the C: volume.
2. Create a second partition for the data, which becomes, for example, the D:
volume.
3. The remaining virtual capacity must be left unpartitioned, and is available
for future partitions as you add disk drives to the array.
Expanding Capacity Online under Windows NT
After using a logical drive, you might want to add another physical drive. If you
prepared the logical drive for the Online Capacity Expansion feature, this can be
done without shutting down and restarting the system.
In the example used throughout this section, you might be nearing the 12-GB
limit, and you want to add another 4-GB drive to the logical drive.
1. Add Capacity by Reconstruction.
1. Add the new physical drive to the adapter by plugging the additional drive
into an empty hot-swap storage slot connected to the adapter.
2. Bring up HP NetRAID Assistant under Windows NT.
3. Select the logical drive and the new physical drive.
4. Select Logical Drive, then Change Config, then Add Capacity.
In our example, this reconstructs the current four-drive RAID 5 array to a
five-drive RAID 5 array.
Reconstruction occurs in the background, so there is no reason to shut
down the server. The original 12-GB volume is available throughout the
reconstruction process. When reconstruction finishes, our sample drive
now has 16 GB of available physical capacity.
The reconstruction rate is about 80 to 180 MB per minute (depending on
drive performance and system loading). Count the capacity to be
reconstructed as the number of physical drives participating in the
reconstruction multiplied by drive capacity.