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Here is my dilemma fellas,

I have a Dell Poweredge T610 with a PERC 6 RAID controller running on Windows Server 2008 R2.

OLD configuration:

3 x 1 TB SAS Drives in RAID 5 configuration

I purchased 3 x 1 TB SAS drives to expand the RAID Array.

Using OMSA, I popped the new drives in and reconfigured the disk to include 2 of the new drives i purchased, now in OMSA it instead of it showing 1.8 TB of usable space it shows 3.7 TB of usable space.

The current disk setup is 1 VHD and that 1 VHD is partitioned into 2 partitions in windows on the machine as follows:

1) 100GB "c:" drive

2) 1.7 TB "f:" drive

So what i need to do now is i need to expand the C partition about 100GB and place the rest of the un-allocated space into drive F...

I cannot seem to get windows to see the additional space that OMSA is reporting i have, it still shows only 1.8 TB of space between both partitions.

I have made a full backup of the system to a new external drive using acronis.

Am i able to use a tool of some sort to expand the partitions in Windows Server 2008 R2 to extend the C partition and the F partition respectively?

would a tool like paragon help me extend the partitions? since this is not a software raid but a hardware raid would a tool like that work? I'm trying to avoid starting from scratch and restoring data because the system is setup to run an instance of sql and I've never set that up or troubleshooted it so if i restore the data i am nervous that something with may go wrong and i could lose my job if i eff that up.

Thank you.

Michael Wright
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  • Did you resize the filesystem that is on top of the RAID array? The Disk Management utility should be able to confirm if your filesystem is taking up the entirety of your disk. – zymhan Mar 28 '16 at 20:00
  • I have not resized anything. All i did was add the disks in the raid 5 array then using omsa i reconfigured the raid 5 to include the 2 new additional disks. so in omsa it shows a total disk size of about 3.74TB while in windows i still only see 1.8 TB of total space between the 2 partitions. – Michael Wright Mar 28 '16 at 21:05
  • Which would leads me to believe that now that the disks are a part of the raid array, i will now need to resize the partitions using some kind of software if possible... that's my questions - can i do it that way? whats the best way? whats the easiest way – Michael Wright Mar 28 '16 at 21:07

2 Answers2

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Due to the fact that you have a virtual disk partitioned as 2 separate drives, your free space will be at the end of your disk and you will not be able to extend both partitions with the built-in Windows tools. You would only be able to extend the F drive.

You will need a third party tool to resize the partitions.

pat o.
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  • I have discovered that because of the current setup I will need a third party tool to resize a hardware based RAID array, it looks like EASEUS partition manager is the tool i will be using. It has identified the additional space much like you mentioned in your comment. – Michael Wright Mar 29 '16 at 16:01
  • MY next question is, if the single VHD is split into 2 drive or partitions, is it possible to have 1 VHD split into 2 partitions where the C drive remains MBR and the F drive can be converted to GPT without any issues? I realize when i see the free space in the partition manager that i cannot make any of the partitions larger than 2 TB and that leaves a bunch of un-allocated space. Would it be possible to have 2 different disk layouts on the same VHD on my raid 5 array in windows server 2008 server? that way i can make use of a data drive that is larger than 2 TB's? – Michael Wright Mar 29 '16 at 16:01
  • I don't believe that is possible. You would most likely have to recreate the array to accomplish that. Instead of doing that, I think the only other thing you can do is resize the F drive to 2 TB then create another partition with the remaining space. – pat o. Mar 29 '16 at 16:51
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    Oh right, I totally missed the fact that his second partition sits in between the root volume and the free space. – zymhan Mar 30 '16 at 14:36
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I would open Disk Management. You can search for it in the start menu, or find it under the Control Panel in Administrative Tools. Alternatively, press Win+R and then type diskmgmt.exe and hit enter.

From there, you should be able to find your boot volume, as it's typically labeled "Boot". If you right click on the partition image on the lower half of the window, you should be able to "Extend Volume". From there, you can add the additional free space of your bigger RAID volume.

This provides some more detail on the process: http://blogs.technet.com/b/mghazai/archive/2009/02/24/extend-system-boot-volume-on-windows-server-2008-windows-vista-win7-beta.aspx

EDIT: This would work but for the fact that the second partition would need to "moved" to the right, i.e. the end of the new logical RAID volume, before the boot/C: drive can be expanded.

zymhan
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