Server 2011 Expanding Storage

[Ur_Mom]

I am working on building a Windows Server 2011 machine with 4 TB of space. I want to be able to span the drives to make it appear as one piece of storage to the clients. I am just curious as if I could add a hard drive or two and expand my existing volume to the newly added drives?

Also, in a RAID5 (or 1), is it possible to increase the size of the array at a later date by adding additional drives?

Or is there another option that I'm overlooking or overthinking this whole thing?

 

[bigdogchris]

From what I know, if you add a drive to Raid 5, it will just come up as unused space. You will then have to resize your partition, which across a raid array, I'm not sure is safe.

Another option is in the future to add another hard drive, then mount the entire drive to the folder where your storing most of your data. Of course this method means no redundancy for that data.

You could also check out Drive Bender, which is basically Drive Extender. It offers many of the same features and from what I can see, is available to all Windows based OSes.

 

[plugwash]

Also, in a RAID5 (or 1), is it possible to increase the size of the array at a later date by adding additional drives?

Afaict that depends on the particular raid implementation. I know linux software raid can do it (not that it helps you much), I'm pretty sure most low end "fakeraids" can't do it. I have no idea whether windows server software raid or the high end hardware raid controllers can do it.

 

[saedrin]

Most hardware RAID cards support array expansion, you'll have to install the drive, add it to the array, and then rebuild the array to spread data across the additional space (though it should do this without prompting). Usually takes a few days per drive addition.

 

[lovemyram4x4]

I've added drives to hardware RAID arrays many times, as mentioned most controllers support online expansion so you simple add the drive then in the management utility tell it to expand the array, depending on the speed/size/number of drives, controller and type of array will dictate on how long it takes(on RAID 5 expect about 1 day). Once it's done you can either expand you existing logical drive/s into the the new unused space or create a new logical drive. I you expanded you existing logical drives then you have the option of either extending a volume or creating a new one, I like using diskprt(built into windows) you simple type in select volume x (if volume number is unknow type list volume first) then extend and you're done.

 

[Ur_Mom]

Cool. I'll try the RAID5, as I like to have some kind of failsafe in case a drive fails.