Dell PowerEdge 1800 Hangs at boot after Dell PERC Sata RAID Controller Successfully POSTs

I went through much pain with this, and the bottom line is that although the controller supports array expansion, Dell have disabled this in their Array Manager and they will not support it. If you replace the Dell driver with the LSI one (I think the controller is an LSI, though I wouldn't swear that it isn't an Adaptec) and use the LSI management software then you might be able to do it. However I would find this a scary business!

My solution was simply to create a new logical disk in the free space. This is completely safe and needs no reboots, though obviously it's clunkier having separate disks. If you really, really want a single partition then you'll have to backup then delete and recreate the array. Note that if your server has the Dell utility partition on it you need to be careful with partition imaging tools as you need to recreate the Dell utility partition or your server won't boot. I speak from (bitter) experience.

JR

You can use the Linux hdparm utility to set your provisioning parameters in this fashion:

root@ubuntu-10-10:~# hdparm -N /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 max sectors   = 312581808/312581808, HPA is disabled

root@ubuntu-10-10:~# hdparm -Np281323627 /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 setting max visible sectors to 281323627 (permanent)
Use of -Nnnnnn is VERY DANGEROUS.
You have requested reducing the apparent size of the drive.
This is a BAD idea, and can easily destroy all of the drive's contents.
Please supply the --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing flag if you really want this.
Program aborted.

root@ubuntu-10-10:~# hdparm -Np281323627 --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 setting max visible sectors to 281323627 (permanent)
 max sectors   = 281323627/312581808, HPA is enabled

root@ubuntu-10-10:~# 

To give credit where it's due, I've got this info from a German server builder's website wiki.

But according to the Intel docs, it would be enough simply to keep the sectors in a "clean" state (in which they would be after a secure erase) by never writing to them. If you define a container/volume which only ever uses 300 GB of each of your drives, this is exactly what you are doing for half of your drives' sectors.