Adding new modules to A1000 Storedge Units

[AlastairCampbell]

The problem is that we need to dynamically add an additional hard disk to our A1000 Storedge Unit (currently populated with 5 18Gb drives and with space for 7 more).i.e. enable the array to recognise that an additional HDD has been added and to then share the existing data over the new number of HDD's.

We are using RAID Manager version 6.01.01.11a and the UltraSparcII Server is running on Solaris 7. Previously, to add new Hard Drives, we have had to backup the data on the array, rebuild the array with the additional drive, and then restore the backup data to the newly expanded array (a time consuming task!).

We can hot swap the HDD into the A1000 box without any problem but when we try to dynamically resize the LUN we get an error message saying that dynamically adding modules to the LUN is only possible with the "Networked" version of RAID Manager.

We have spoken to Sun who have no knowledge of this "Networked" version of RAID manager even though the RAID Manager Help specifically describes the need for the "Networked" version when adding new modules. Has anyone else come across this problem or has experience of adding new hard drives to A1000 boxes?

 

[unixkid]

You can add as many HDD's as empty slots permit. This is done "hot" while the system is up and running. Raid Manager will automatically pick up the new disks.
You can not add these new disks to existing luns dynamically. In order for you to grow your lun/volume size, you would have to use Veritas Volume manager or SDS to concatanate or grow the lun/volume, but it can not be done with Raid Manager. The other option is to backup the data, recreate the lun with Raid Manager with the size lun you need, and restore your data.

The only type of dynamic changes that can be made to existing luns is the ability to change the lun segment size, caching parameters, and lun assignments to controllers if using a A3500. Keep in mind that these dynamic changes are features only available in RM6.22. Another good reason to upgrade in addition to the bug fixes.

The "Networked" version might be a version used with Windows NT. I do not know of any version for or used with Solaris. Hope that helps...