Problem with adding disks with vSphere client on existing RAID

[FlorianGachet]

Hi all,

I am new with vm ware and doesn't have good skills in IT virtualisation, and now for many reasons I have to take the IT managment (we are a small firm) so I need help and that would be kind of you :

The configuration is ESXi on a HP Proliant ML350, one virtual machine on it with Windows Server 2008 R2. Host is managed with vSphere client, and I would like to extend a datastore. Storage adapter is Smart Array P410i with actually 2 datastores on 4 SAS, I suppose based on RAID 1 configuration (2 physical disks 146 Go, and 2 others with 300 Go).

Thirst question, excuse me if it is basic but, how can I be sure it is RAID 1 ? I didn't find it with vSphere, and even at host boot, in the BIOS... ?

Secondly, I tried to add the two new disks as describe on documentation, but vSphere doesn't see new added disks, or just as unconfigured disks. Here is what I have in health status :

I don't know how to configure those new two disks. I tried to add a new LUN but disks are not seen, there is surely a thing I don't get about RAID configuration. Do I have to break the existing RAID configuration for adding new disks ??? I thought it was simplier but I am surrely wrong...

I also expect that the port 2I should be configured, but...

Thanks in advance for your help !

Florian

[DSTAVERT]

Welcome to the Communities

Moved to the vSphere ESXi forums.

[DSTAVERT]

Did you create a new array with the two new disks with the BIOS array configuration tool?

[J1mbo]

As said, there should be a utility accessibly during the POST phase to configure the array controller (or via some service utility).  You need to either add the two new disks to the existing 300GB mirror (to create a 600GB RAID-10 set) or create another 300GB mirror.

Be careful to avoid 'online capacity expansion' (might be called something slightly different) if building a RAID-10 set, as this will render the space unusable without deleteing the existing datastore.  However it's done, the goal is to create a new LUN of 300GB, on which a new datastore can be created from the vSphere client, or it can be added to the existing datastore (via an extent).

Hope that helps.

[FlorianGachet]

ok thank you, I was not sure I could install and use this utility on a virtualized system, I thought it was managed by vSphere because I saw nothing in BIOS. I will try tonight.

my intention is to create a 600 GB RAID, I guess in RAID-10 as you say (I thought it was RAID 1). I am not sure I understand well about the 'online capacity expansion', but in my case I guess the best thing is to create a new datastore on the new LUN of 300 GB ? Or is there a reason I should extand the existing datastore (that was my first idea) ?

[chriswahl]

HP has a bootable disk, called SmartStart, that gives a nice graphical interface to create RAID arrays. I find it less clunky and more feature rich than the BIOS utility.