Merging unallocated space to existing partition in Raid5

Question

I have Dell PowerEdge Server T310 built with a Raid5 (3 x 300gb) Windows Server 2008 R2 SAS controller PERC H700.

I have recently added a 4th drive 300gb thru Dell’s application “Openmanage”. The whole procedure went well. Now I want to merge the unallocated space with the Datapart1 (see below), the system does not permit to extend volume, and when I try to format the unallocated space I get an error saying “the disk already contains the maximum number of partition”.

My question is; How do I do it? Do I have to copy all data from Datapart1 to a spare drive, delete the partition and recreate a new one using all the space available? Or is there another way?

Tried to post snap shot of disk, but I don’t have enough reputation, sorry.

39 mb no name - (OEM Partition), 3.00 gb Recovery - (System, Active, Primary Partition), 40.00 gb OS (C:) - (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition), 514.71 gb Datapart1 (D:) - (Logical Drive), 278.88 gb Unallocated

Can you describe what happens when you try to extend Datapart1 volume? — Dusan Bajic, Jun 08 '12 at 12:47
If you post a link to the screen shot (imgur or whatever), I will edit it into your question. — MDMarra, Jun 08 '12 at 12:48
[Can you describe what happens when you try to extend Datapart1 volume?] Absolutely nothing, the option was grayed out — 3Desco, Jun 08 '12 at 13:57

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 24 '12 at 17:06

Finally, the only way I was able to merged the extra space was;

Backup all the data on that partition.
Delete the partition
Create a new partition using all available space.
Then restore the volume backup.

The reason I had to do it this way is because Windows Server 2008 R2 does not let you have more than 4 partitions no matter what software you use i.e.: (partition magic). So the extra space I had created was unallocated and I could not initialize it or expand the existing partition.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 08 '12 at 13:29

0

in the dell tools, adding a drive to an existing RAID5 group is considered a "RAID Level Migration" (exact wording depends on version), not an expansion. when you choose a RAID level migration, tell it you want RAID5, select the new drive as a member in addition to the existing 3, and it should restripe on to your new drive.

answered Jun 08 '12 at 13:29

longneck

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What I did was 1-Add the physical drive 2-Added it to the Raid5 3-Rebuild Raid5 – 3Desco Jun 08 '12 at 14:00
did my answer guide you in the right direction? if so, please accept it as the correct answer by click on the checkmark to the left of my answer. – longneck Jun 08 '12 at 14:13

Merging unallocated space to existing partition in Raid5

2 Answers2