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July 9th, 2019 03:00

Substituting HDDs in MD1200 and MD3600f for larger volumes

Hi, We have a storage array consisting of 9 md1200 chassis and 1 md3600f controlling the array. The use identical WD 3TB 6gbps SAS HDDs which we have managed to substitute for the same model or the equivalent from Seagate through these years. Now our supplier told me that these HDDs are no longer produced, and the closest he can find are 4TB 12gbps SAS HDDs. I have two questions about this. 1) Can I use this disks, mixed with the old 3TB ones, in the same volume? I understand that the bandwidth and size would be limited to 3TB 6gbps, but I wonder about the stability of this configuration. 2) Suppose that (in the future) i substitute one by one (after reconstructing the raid) the HDDs on the same volume to, lets say, HDDs of 4Tb and 12 gbps. Is possible to enlarge the raid and volume to the extra size without data loss?. If that was the case I may consider buying larger HDDs and substitute them in the following years. Thanks in advance

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July 9th, 2019 08:00

Hello miguelpenc,

  1. You can mix 3TB & 4TB drives in your virtual disk as long as they are the same type. Drives with 12 GBps interface speed down-train to 6 GBps when installed in the enclosure.
  2. If you replace your small drives with larger ones you will not be able to see the extra space unless you recreate the virtual disk.

Here are the links to the support matrix so you can make sure that you are using a Dell drive that will work in your MD’s

MD3600f support matrix.

https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/powervault-md3200_support-matrix_en-us.pdf

MD1200 support matrix

https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/powervault-md1200_support-matrix_en-us.pdf

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

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