Adding drives

I recently added two drives to my iSCSI server. They showed up in the 3ware configuration and I was able to import them into the array. After the array rebuilt, I rebooted the server and the open-E iSCSI OS shows the correct capacity (3.41 TB) in the volume group. However, the new add new volume tool shows that I onlyl have 5 GB free. The total used capacity of all of the existing volumes is only 1.4 TB, so I'm wondering where the rest of my drive capacity has gone and how I can make it available for use.

Try to restart the server again - cant remember but I remember that someone did 2 re-boots and got it to work and not sure if the 3Ware was finishing the expansion.

Also do a rescan from the Volume Manager. Any errors from the 3Ware side ? Check the 3Ware logs and also any errors from our side that we might be able to see anything from our end.

After a restart and a rescan, I've still got the same results. There are no errors on the 3ware side and the array is fully expanded with a status of OK. If there are any errors on the iSCSI side, I don't know where to find them as the event viewer in the lower left isn't showing anything.

Ok, try the PV Resize tool in the Extended Tools from console - Enter CTRL + ALT + X then select the PV Resize option and see if you see new volume. If not then send the logs to support@open-e.com and we mya need to you to enable the Remote Support option to have our engineers look into this.

The PV resize did the trick. Thanks for the help.

Hi,

I'm planning to add a new drive to the 3ware array and I just found this post when looking if it was possible from the DSS side.

Just to make sure please tell me if this is possible.

I currently have 3 unit array in the 3ware and one volume shown on the DSS.
Now I want to add a 4th unit to the existing volume. From the 3ware side it looks like it is
just a matter of swaping in a new drive and adding it to the existing volume.

Now my question is: Will that extra space be available on the existing volume seen by DSS, or will it show up as a new separate volume?

Can I easily expand the existing volume without loosing any data?

King Regards

I think you can do this, but DEFINITELY backup your data beforehand! We had a customer that almost lost all their data this way.

Yes! I'll backup every volume into tapes just in case Mr Murphy decides to pay a visit.

I just wanted to know if it was a task that I should schedule for the weekend or if a single night would do.

From what I see from the previous posts a single night maintenance will do, but I wellcome more opinions/experiences.

Thanks!

Hi HangaS

The part that will take the longest will be the data migration when adding the new drive.
I cannot tell you exactley how long it will take, it will depend on the size of the drive.

you should add the new disk in this order
add the new disk to the array with your 3ware utility
(the data migration will take a long time, go Have dinner)
then use the PVresize utility in ctrl-alt-x
then the disk should be good to go.

I think you may need to reboot after the pvresize

I've done it a couple of times without data loss

good luck

Hi,

Thanks I already did it.
The migration took a very long time indeed. a couple of days for a 1TB Hitachi drive.

The only thing I was not expecting was that NSS reseted all my connections. And some NFS shares did not came back ok. :S