How to Perform Online Capacity Expansion Using the Intel® RAID BIOS Console for the 6Gbps Intel® Integrated RAID Modules and Intel® RAID Controllers

Documentation

Install & Setup

000007571

06/02/2021

You can use the Intel® RAID BIOS Console to increase the capacity of an existing virtual disk by adding physical disk drives to it. This feature is called Online Capacity Expansion (OCE), which isn't featured on the onboard RAID solutions:

  • Intel® Rapid Storage Technology enterprise
  • Intel® Embedded Server RAID Technology 2
Caution
Before you change the capacity for a virtual disk, you should always perform a backup of the data on the existing virtual disk.
Note

Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) isn't supported when there's: 

  • No migrating or OCE on a spanned RAID array or disk group (RAID 10, RAID 50, or RAID 60).
  • No migration to a smaller capacity configuration.
  • No OCE when there's more than one virtual drive on a virtual array or disk group.

To increase the capacity of a virtual disk using Intel RAID BIOS Console, follow these steps:

  1. Power on the system.
  2. Press Ctrl+G to start Intel RAID BIOS Console.
  3. In the Logical View, click the virtual disk that you want to expand.


    Screenshot of RAID BIOS Controller indicating highlighting a Virtual Disk
     

  4. Select Adv Opers and click Go.

    Screenshot of RAID BIOS Console with "Adv Opers" highlighted
     

  5. Select Change RAID Level and Add Drive but leave the RAID Level the same. Select the additional physical disk drives to add to the virtual disk, and then click Go. (Use the CTRL button on your keyboard to select multiple drives.)

    Screenshot of RAID BIOS Console with "Change RAID level and Add Drive" highlighted
     

  6. Click Yes to proceed. A reconstruction operation begins on the virtual disk. You can monitor the progress of the reconstruction by clicking VD Progress Info at the bottom of the screen.

    Screenshot of RAID BIOS Console indicating location of "VD Progress Info" button
     

    Screenshot of RAID BIOS Console

  7. Set the Reconstruction Rate of the Controller to 20 or less to maintain enough controller resources to use the virtual drive normally, while the reconstruction is completing.
    Reconstruction rate

The Online Capacity Expansion is then completed in the background.

You can reboot the system and continue normal operation without interrupting the reconstruction.

Note