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RE: Dynamically increase/reduce hardware raid partition?



> 
> On Wed, 14 Apr 2004, Michael Bellears wrote:
> 
> > I have just installed Debian 3 on a Smart Array 6400 (4 
> disks (146.8G
> > each) Raid 5) - This gives me a data partition of 409G.
> 
> that's pretty bad ... i'd have expected somewhere around 3x 
> 146gb of usable space

That is my "data" partition - I have other partitions taking up the
remaining space.

> 
> when you formatted the disks... did you use -m 1  or some 
> other non-default "reserved space" on these giant disks

No - Standard install with cfdisk (So whatever it uses)

> 
> > If I add an additional 146.8G drive, and update the 
> array(Raid BIOS),
> 
> if you changed the "partition" ( raid bios )...  you lost all data
> - partitions are not dynamically resizable to add new disks 
> to the array

I added the addiditional HD to the dynamic array (HP top tools) - Giving
a total of ~520G (As reported in HP Tool)

> 
> > the changes are not reflected when in Debian (i.e. It still 
> only sees 
> > a 409G partition, not ~520G)
> > 
> > Is there anyway around this? Or everytime we add an 
> additional drive, 
> > we must create a new array, and add it to fstab?
> 
> you need to use a "resizable" filesystem type ( reiserfs or 
> jfs or xfs )
> 	- if forgot which fs are dynamically resizable to allow the
> 	inclusion of the new disk into its existing partitions
> 	( allows you to make 256MB /  to be 512MB / or 
> something like it )

I am running ReiserFS - Is there anything I need to do once I have
rebooted with the additional drive to have it "see" the additional
space?

> 
> growing an existing raid array on the fly is a "bad thing" 
> and i hope you have very good backups to restore the entire array

The server has a capacity of 16 drives - We currently only have
5(Couldn't talk management into purchasing 16x$1000 drives striaght up!)
- I wanted to be able to "grow" the size of the array when demand
dicates(i.e. once we have used ~450G, I would like to add an extra two
146.8 G drives to increase our data partition's size)..

Regards,
MB
 



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