Upgrading disks in an EVA3000

[Bruno Bossier_1]

We have an EVA3000 with 12 x 72GB disks so 2 free slots left. We want to upgrade those 72GB disks to 146GB disks. As we don't have additional disk bays, what is the best way to do this upgrade ?

HP recommended us to take out an existing disk, thus initiating a disk failure because the disk is in use in a production environment and replacing it with the new disk. This has to be done disk per disk.

Any other suggestions ?

[Steven Clementi]

Bruno:

Unfortunatelly, since you do not have extra slots you are stuck with having to perform the upgrade 1 of only few ways...


The first way is as HP stated. Swap one drive at a time, let it rebuild, swap the next, let it rebuild, etc.

The second way, and more tedious way would be to utilize the 2 slots you do have...

Install 2 new drives, add them to the Disk Group. once the leveling is complete, remove 2 of the old disks. Let it re-level. Remove the old drives, and add in 2 more 146's. Perform the same process5 more times. As you can see, this can take a LOOOOOOOONG time.

Third option is to get a second Disk Shelf, add all the disks at once, let it level, then remove the old disks.

Fourth option is to re-initialize and restore datafrom backup.

What sparring are you using? If you are at Double, then you might be able to initiate a 4 disk failure and add in 4 at a time... 6 on the first attempt.


Eitherway, make sure you have a really good backup.




Steven

[Bruno Bossier_1]

We are using single protection, so we're stuck with doing the swap one by one.

I also thought of your second option : adding 2 x 146GB in the 2 free slots and then removing 2 disks at the same time, but what is the risk ? I prefer the first option. This will definitely take some time.

Options 3 and 4 are more clean, but unfortunately not a possibility.

Thanks anyway for the suggestions !

Cheers,
Bruno

[Bruno Bossier_1]

After talking to HP again, this is the procedure we are going to use :

1. Set sparing off
2. Add 2 x 146GB disks in the 2 free slots
3. Let it relevel
4. One by one :
- ungroup a 72GB from the diskgroup
- let it relevel
- physically remove the 72GB disk
- wait a few minutes
- physically add the 146GB disk
- add the 146GB disk to the diskgroup
- let it relevel
When relevel is done, do next disk
5. When there is enough free capacity again after having migrated a few disks, we can set sparing back to single (as it was before).

What do you think ?