Adding new drive module - Will I lose data?
I am running a 3 month old intel xserve conected to a Xserve RAID. It was installed with 4x 500gb disks on RAID 5.
I am now wanting to install an additional drive. I have followed the bellow instruction and am now at the stage to merge the slice. However, there is a warning in the merge slice menu stating data will be lost.
Is this data from the original array or the new formatted disk? I have spoken to apple an they did not make much sense saying that the Xserve OS is not compatible with the RAID and that 'Expanding' and 'Merging' slices will not make the additional 500gb visible - I find this hard to understand as surly these 2 products are built to be compatible with each other.
Apple say that the only way to add an additional drive and make the additional space on it visible is to back up the whole system and configure it all from scratch.
Any body got any suggestions?
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Instructions I was following...
Expanding an array is a two-stage procedure:
Using the Expansion window to add one or more drives to an array
Using the Slicing window to merge the slices in that array
Important: Only expand an array that has not been sliced previously. If you expand an array that already has slices on it, all the data on the array will be erased when you merge slices in the array.
Open RAID Admin, click Advanced, and enter the management password.
Click Expansion in the Advanced window and click Continue.
In the Expansion window, select the array you want to expand.
Select the number of drives you want to add to the array.
The controller automatically selects available drives to add to the array.
Click the Confirmation checkbox to confirm that you want to expand the array.
Click Expand Array.
The RAID controller begins restriping data across all the drives. The added drives' capacity is added to the array as an unmapped slice. To make the added drive or drives available to the array, merge the slices on that array.
To complete the expansion procedure by merging, return to the Advanced window, select Slicing, and merge the slices on the array that you just expanded.
Intel Xserve & RAID Mac OS X (10.4.9)
I am now wanting to install an additional drive. I have followed the bellow instruction and am now at the stage to merge the slice. However, there is a warning in the merge slice menu stating data will be lost.
Is this data from the original array or the new formatted disk? I have spoken to apple an they did not make much sense saying that the Xserve OS is not compatible with the RAID and that 'Expanding' and 'Merging' slices will not make the additional 500gb visible - I find this hard to understand as surly these 2 products are built to be compatible with each other.
Apple say that the only way to add an additional drive and make the additional space on it visible is to back up the whole system and configure it all from scratch.
Any body got any suggestions?
--------------------------------------------------
Instructions I was following...
Expanding an array is a two-stage procedure:
Using the Expansion window to add one or more drives to an array
Using the Slicing window to merge the slices in that array
Important: Only expand an array that has not been sliced previously. If you expand an array that already has slices on it, all the data on the array will be erased when you merge slices in the array.
Open RAID Admin, click Advanced, and enter the management password.
Click Expansion in the Advanced window and click Continue.
In the Expansion window, select the array you want to expand.
Select the number of drives you want to add to the array.
The controller automatically selects available drives to add to the array.
Click the Confirmation checkbox to confirm that you want to expand the array.
Click Expand Array.
The RAID controller begins restriping data across all the drives. The added drives' capacity is added to the array as an unmapped slice. To make the added drive or drives available to the array, merge the slices on that array.
To complete the expansion procedure by merging, return to the Advanced window, select Slicing, and merge the slices on the array that you just expanded.
Intel Xserve & RAID Mac OS X (10.4.9)
Various G5, Intel imac, Xserve, Mac OS X (10.4.9)
