My current set up is a Dell PowerEdge 1950, two 250GB SATA drives, RAID 1, OS is Ubuntu server. Using it for running OTRS (open source help desk).
I'd like to upgrade the drives to the maximum capacity possible, and it's my understanding that 2TB is the max. I also understand that I can use a non Dell hard drive with the only risk of not having Dell supporting it, although it can work.
So, first of all, are these two statements correct?
Secondly, what would be the best way to do that? Can I just replace the first drive, let the array rebuild, then replace the other drive? I assume that if this is a valid practice, I will have to expand capacity from the original size to the new one?
I appreciate any help and advise on this matter in advance!
Best Answer
I recently replaced a drive in my PE1950 with PERC 5/i. My drives weren't configured as a RAID array, but I still had to go into the PERC management interface and create a new "Virtual Disk" to get it to use the drive. When I created the virtual disk, I definitely had to specify the size before assigning physical disks to it.
My recommendation would be to install the new 2TB drives and create the new array from scratch, and then restore your data manually (from backup or by cloning over one of the old drives).
Of course, if you're not using the PERC and you're using the Linux software RAID, this advice isn't helpful. (like TessellatingHeckler said)