Adding an extra HD to an existing RAID

[jhoge]

Hi,

I've got 3 HDs on a RAID 5 array running of a Dell Perc 6/i controller on a Dell T300 server. It's working well, but I'd like to add a fourth HD to the RAID. I'm pretty sure I can do this in the BIOS in a way that just increases the capacity of the logical disk. If so, will VMWare see the datastore grow magically, or will I need to reinstall ESXi?

I'm using ESXi 4.1.

Thanks

[AndreTheGiant]

You can grow the VMFS volume.

But also you can create a new virtual disk in your PERC BIOS and this make visible another datastore.

PS: if you have OMSA installed you can configure your RAID volumes without reboot the system.

Andre

[BenConrad]

Not sure how Dell does this but with HP, when you grow an array on a HP P-series controller you end up with an extra logical volume which you then must format and treat as a separate pDisk. So, In ESX, you would format this as another VMFS.

Ben