Adding drives – HP Smart Array P800 Controller User Manual
Page 39
Replacing, moving, or adding hard drives 39
•
The controller is not running capacity expansion, capacity extension, or RAID or stripe size
migration.
•
The controller is using the latest firmware version (recommended).
Before you move an array to another controller:
•
If the other controller is already connected to one or more arrays of configured logical drives, the
total number of logical drives on the controller after the drives have been moved must not exceed the
number of logical drives that the controller supports. This number depends on the controller model
and on the controller firmware version.
•
The total number of hard drives on the other controller after the drives have been moved must not
exceed the maximum number of supported hard drives for that controller model and firmware
version.
•
All drives in the array must be moved at the same time.
When all the conditions have been met:
1.
Back up all data before removing any drives or changing configuration. This step is required if you
are moving data-containing drives from a controller that does not have a battery-backed cache
module.
2.
Power down the system.
3.
Move the drives.
4.
Power up the system.
o
If a 1724 or 1727 POST message appears, drive positions were changed successfully and the
configuration was updated.
o
If a 1785 POST message appears:
i.
Power down the system immediately to prevent data loss.
ii.
Return the drives to their original locations.
iii.
Restore the data from backup, if necessary.
5.
Verify the new drive configuration by running ORCA or ACU ("
Adding drives
You can add hard drives to a system at any time, as long as you do not exceed the maximum number of
drives that the controller supports. You can then either build a new array from the added drives or use the
extra storage capacity to expand the capacity of an existing array.
If the hard drives that you intend to add to the system are already configured into logical drives, certain
conditions must be met before you add the hard drives to the system. When you have successfully added
the hard drives, reset the server so that the controller can recognize the logical drives.
To perform an array capacity expansion, use ACU. If the system uses hot-pluggable drives and ACU runs
in the same environment as the normal server applications, you can expand array capacity without
shutting down the operating system. For more information, see the Configuring Arrays on HP Smart Array
Controllers Reference Guide.
The expansion process is illustrated in the following figure, in which the original array (containing data) is
shown with a dashed border, and the newly added drives (containing no data) are shown unshaded. The
array controller adds the new drives to the array and redistributes the original logical drives over the
enlarged array one logical drive at a time. This process liberates some storage capacity on each physical