Re: Use mixed sizes drives in the same Raid string

No can do. In order for RAID protection to be effective (that is protect ALL the data on all the drives) all the drives need to be the same size. As a result the system won't let you do what you're proposing.

You could go with two sets of four drives using 35's and 70's. This could be a slightly simpler migration because the load source drive could remain a 35GB unit and that's the one that's most difficult to swap out. With only 8 slots available and the system gettin close to full, chances are you're going to need to back off a lot of stuff to be able do the disk migration with STRASPBAL though. This means at least two full system backups, then replace the drives and a full restore is the best plan. If you're going through all that then you may want to replace all 8 drives with 70s and be done with it.

- DrFranken

On 4/14/2010 6:54 AM, Marco Facchinetti wrote:

I'va a customer using 87% of the installed disks (246 Gb) so I have to find
how to increase the total amount of disk space without an expansion unit (no
available slots for new disks).

The machine is a 9405-520, the controller a 573D-001 with 8 disks (4326),
Raid5 is active. Total available space is 246 Gb.

My 1st question: may I mix in the same raid set drives with diffrent
capacity (eg. 36 and 70 gb)?

If posssible should I expect any perfomance problems?

If not possible should I split the raid in two strings (eg. 4x4326 and
4x4327) or I must change all the drives?

Any suggestion is much appreciated.

TIA

MarcoF