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Expanding md1200 Raid6 with second enclosure
I'm running an r620 with esxi, connected to an MD1200 running RAID6, connected via perc h800
I need to add more storage and have 2 more MD1200s.
My question is more on 'how'.
Can I just chain the 2 new enclosures full of drives to the current, power them all on, then expand my RAID6 via OMSA somehow?
And without data loss?
I've read about expanding within an enclosure, but I've never chained 2 or 3 together while one has data already.
Wisdom appreciated!
ondoyar
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July 24th, 2023 10:00
As an update:
I took the plunge and powered all down.
Chained on a second md1200, and brought it all back up.
I had to adopt the foreign drives, reboot, then use the BIOS level raid controller interface to build a second VD.
I could not expand the current VD, and apparently that's a limitation to the perc h800 I have.
(fully aware of older hardware restrictions).
With a second VD, I was able to make another datastore in ESXI and, all is working great.
Thank you! Still nervous adding hardware, but other than the LENGTHY initialization time for a 37tb raid 6...it went smooth.
DellEMCSupport
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June 15th, 2023 17:00
Hello thanks for choosing Dell.
The “Hot-add” is not possible for MD 1200.
To add an HDD to the VD
https://dell.to/43JisS3
Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) can be done in two ways:
Please note that data backup is a must.
ondoyar
4 Posts
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June 16th, 2023 07:00
Thank you Moderator!
Just to clarify - not sure what 'hot add' is - but I have no issue powering my system down.
I'm more wondering on the 'how'.
Do I power all down, chain the new enclosure to the current, then power on new-old-controller server (in that order) ?
Right now, I have only one virtual disk:
I've never 'added' to my RAID6 - always using the max available in the MD1200.
I assume that you'll see more disks once the new enclosure is added, and you can just check them to add them?
Thank you SO much for the assistance in this!
~dave
DELL-Charles R
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June 16th, 2023 08:00
Hello ondoyar,
It is always recommended to have a validated backup before performing Online Capacity Expansion.
Make sure the system firmware is up to date: iDRAC, BIOS, PERC controller
Make sure your beginning and ending RAID is RAID6 when doing the online capacity expansion.
You would need to shut down the Host, then shut down the storage. Add you other MD1200. Power up the storage then power up the Host.
You can have 16 virtual disks per disk group
Up to 64 virtual disks per controller
NOTE: The total number of physical disks in a disk group cannot exceed 32.
Maximum of up to 4 enclosures
Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) H700 and H800 User’s Guide
https://dell.to/462QX7T
You may consider making separate arrays on separate enclosures. Consider if you have a failure on one enclosure the entire storage will be brought down.