Unable to extend logical partition after adding new hard disks into an existing RAID5 array

Latest response

Hi,

We have a ProLiant DL360 Gen9 with a Smart Array Controller containing 5 x 300GB 12G SAS drives configured in to 1 logical drive using RAID 5. I have added 3 new drives of identical type the the first 5 and want to use it to expand the size of the current RAID array. After adding such drivers using the HP Smart Storage Administrator, in Redhat 6 using parted or gdisk , there is no extended space in the current logical drive.

Here is the Before and After results in my server using command gdisk /dev/sda

Before:

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 2099199 1024.0 MiB EF00
2 2099200 4196351 1024.0 MiB 0700
3 4196352 37750783 16.0 GiB 8200
4 37750784 2343486010 1.1 TiB 8E00 Linux LVM => note that the started sector No 37750784, with current size = 1.1 TiB

After:

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 2099199 1024.0 MiB EF00
2 2099200 4196351 1024.0 MiB 0700
3 4196352 37750783 16.0 GiB 8200
4 37750784 2343486010 1.1 TiB 8E00 Linux LVM

Any idea so to fix this issue?

Thx in advance,

Trung

Responses

After using HP Smart Storage Administrator, the /dev/sda device should now be bigger than it originally was, and the added space should be visible as unallocated space at the end of /dev/sda (= after /dev/sda4). If the new size of /dev/sda is not visible yet, you might have to first run

# echo 1 > /sys/block/sda/device/rescan

and then use parted/gdisk to extend /dev/sda4 to take advantage of the new capacity. Once you've successfully edited the partition table, you may have to run

# partprobe /dev/sda

to make the partition table changes effective. In some cases, you might even have to reboot (depends on kernel & driver versions). Once the /dev/sda4 partition is successfully extended, you'll need to run one more command:

# pvresize /dev/sda4

After this, the "vgs" command should indicate that the added space is available to you using LVM.

(Alternatively, you could add a new partition, but personally I prefer using LVM: it's more flexible and allows on-line migration if you ever need to re-organize your disks.)

I'm not exactly up to date with the HP management tools, but usually RAID management tools only modify the actual the RAID logical disk. It's the sysadmin's job to edit the partition table and/or resize the LVM PV after the logical disk has been extended.

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