idrac9 percH730p RAID10 expansion

Hello thanks for choosing Dell. 
"I've read that it's possible with idrac9 to extend RAID10 now"
I'm not sure about this. (You can provide the link if you like)

This read is what I can give you: https://dell.to/3PY03f3

Respectfully,

I found this article https://tekmart.co.za/t-blog/how-to-extend-a-virtual-disk-allowing-you-to-expand-the-raid-size/

Which states "Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) can be done in two ways:

If there is a single virtual disk in a disk group and free space is available. The virtual disk’s capacity can be expanded within that free space.

If a virtual disk is created and it does not use the maximum size of the disk group, free space is available."

I also found some Dell video tutorials that address expansion and while it shows the expansion with free space as an option it only covers expansion by adding disks. 

From what I understand you can expand by percentage or by adding disks. We need to expand it by percentage as we have already upgraded the drives. 

Hello,
when it comes to using expansion especially in production. It will go for days/weeks/months depending on the capacity,
 
it will impact performance.
And if any of the drives will fail during expansion VD will be lost or not remediable 
 
this is how you can do from PERC https://dell.to/4hAokUo
How To Perform Online Capacity Expansion for Dell PERC | Dell Kiribati
This video will demonstrate performing procedure of an Online Capacity Expansion for Dell PERC.

This is online from OMSA https://dell.to/3EsDxbD

To install OMSA on ESXI https://dell.to/3CiuPwg
 

So the best or recommended way would just be to do it from perc on boot up rather than trying to do it while it's in production? 

The link to that video just shows how to create a new virtual disk which we already know how to do. We need to know how to expand the virtual disk to utilize the space on the new drives. This is what we are running into. Every link I've found in the forums just show how to create them. 

Hi, you can take a look this link but it will take a time. 

Again, this link has to do with adding more physical disks. We are not adding physical disks. Just upgrading the current ones. And it also has to do with a raid 5 set up. Ours is raid 10. I. That link they talk about rebuilding it to a raid 10 from a raid 5. We don't need to do that. 

Hello,

You already have your virtual disks drives changed out and now you want to expand into that available space.

Log into the DRAC

Navigate to Storage:

In the iDRAC web interface, go to Configuration and then click on Storage Configuration.

Select the Virtual Disk:

Under the Virtual Disks tab, select the virtual disk you want to expand.

Edit Disk Capacity:

Click on the Actions drop-down menu and select Edit Disk Capacity.

The current capacity and available free space will be displayed.

Increase Capacity:

Enter the new desired capacity for the virtual disk.

Click Apply to save the changes.

Monitor the Job Queue:

Go to the Job Queue to monitor the status of the expansion operation.

Once the job is complete, the new capacity will be reflected.

Well, that was easy enough. but the job fails every time. I get a pr21 message.

I have the space, but it will not expand it. 

Hello,

The PR21 error message on a Dell PowerEdge server indicates that a job has failed. This error typically occurs when attempting to create or reconfigure a RAID array. The detailed description of the PR21 error is that the specified job did not complete successfully.

Make sure that all firmware (iDRAC, BIOS, PERC, HDD, and backplane) are up to date.

Check the Lifecycle Log for more details associated with the failure.

Sorry for the late response, we had to wait till the weekend to update the server. The job is still failing. Would we need to manually shut it down and enter the perc controller itself to expand this virtual disk?

Hello this may help:

https://dell.to/4gBI5tV

from that post you linked to it looks like it's booted into the perc controller itself from startup. I'm just trying to make sure because shutting this thing down is a whole ordeal as there are a lot of VMs running on it. that's what i'm trying to find out. if it won't expand via idrac9 then will it do so in the controller itself? everything is up to date as far as i can tell now. it seems to me i'm going to get the same error. I'm just trying to find any insight on this. 

I found this https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/poweredge-server-education/idrac-9-gui-perc-virtual-disk-online-capacity-expansionoce/647f9d7ff4ccf8a8de1d0bc5  which says i should be able to do this. i've tried a smaller expansion, not using up the remaining space totally and it still fails. 

Hello,

Are you adding more disks?

Also this is good make sure you follow this: https://dell.to/4gxL1ro

Are you adding more space here?

We may need to look at look at the TTY logs to see what the issue. You can raise a ticket through https://dell.to/4gEJ0JY

https://dell.to/4hxRIv0

Respectfully,