Merging of two similar datastore in MSA2052

[DiagoFernandes]

I currently have two data stores that include 3 x 800gb SSD with RAID 5, and 13 x 900gb SAS with RAID 5. Now I can see that the space of SSD sore is beginning to fill up.

I purchased additional 3 x 800gb SSD and created a new data store with RAID 5. Is there anyway to extend the primary SSD store with the newly created SSD store without the need for me to do storage migration for the VMs that are sitting on the SSD store to the SAS data store and deleting the SSD store and recreating the RAID i.e. 6 x 800gb SSD.

I believe that I can do a storage merge but I have to purchase a license both from HPE and VMware. Your input will be highly appreciated. Thank you.

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1]

@DiagoFernandes 

You just add the new VDG created with SSDs to the pool where your first SSD VDG exists. This will increase your Pool size. 

Another approach,

I think you are taking advantage of tiering between SSD and non-SSD drives part of the same pool. So if you delete the 1st SSD VDG then all existing data will be migrated to non-SSD VDGs part of the same Pool. This is called VDRAIN process. Then you can create new SSD VDG with 6 drives and add this new VDG to the same Pool.

Note: Before you delete SSD VDG you need to make sure that non-SSD VDG having sufficient space to take care of all SSD VDG data.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

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[DiagoFernandes]

Thank you Subhajit for your quick response. 

What I understand from your response is, when I create a new VDG (800gb x 3) with RAID 5, and add this to Pool A (which I created for SSD VDG), it will automatically increase the Pool size i.e. (800gb x 6) with RAID 5 without need for me to destroy the current VDG and rebuild it with the new 3 SSD hard disks. We currently have thin provisioning.

On another topic, can I switch between wide and thin provisioning without breaking anything on a production MSA?

Also, how do I know automated tiering is working/enabled on the MSA 2052. I understanding when I buy MSA2052, the Advanced Data Services Software license is provided. 

Thank you,

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1 · Accepted solution]

@DiagoFernandes 

Yes two Pool size space will be equavalent to (6 X 800GB) but this doesn't mean RAID applicable on 6 drives in Pool level rather RAID applicable on each VDG level and in this case on 3 drives per VDG. 

On another topic, can I switch between wide and thin provisioning without breaking anything on a production MSA?

Ans: There is nothing called Wide provisioning but it's called Wide striping which is responsible for data rebalancing. The leveling process begins automatically and redistributes data evenly across all disk groups in the storage pool. So if your question is Switch between Thick or Full provisioning to Thin Provisioning or vice versa then that's not applicable here because MSA 2050 series is fully virtualized array. All volumes are Thin provisioning only.

Also, how do I know automated tiering is working/enabled on the MSA 2052. I understanding when I buy MSA2052, the Advanced Data Services Software license is provided. 

Ans: Yes your understanding is correct. To enable the tiering (data movement) between the Performance tier with SSDs and either of the other tiers, the Advanced Data Services Suite is required. Systems containing only SSDs will not require additional licenses until additional tiers are added.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!

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[DiagoFernandes]

Thank you Subhajit, I appricate your clear and concise answer to my queries.

[DiagoFernandes]

Dear Subhajit,

Apologies for the trouble, We have the current setup

1- 800 SSD X 6 (Configured as 1 Disk Group with Raid 5)

2-900 HDD X 13 (Configured as 1 Disk Group with Raid 5)

They are then presented to VMWAre as two seperate disk , all I/O intensive VMs are in SSD pool and Normal VMs are in HDD Pool , some machine have 2 partitions , for OS they are in SSD and Application HDD.

VMware store

(HP_MSA are store presented to VMWare from MSA , the datastore are local HDD on each of the three physical servers part of the VMWARE cluster)

now we would like to understand how we can make use of performance teiring , where both SSD and HDD are part of the Group.

Device details are as under,

Objective : Optimize disk space and performace .

Please help, awaiting your kind response.

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1]

@DiagoFernandes 

As per my understanding your SSD VDG part of Pool A and non-SSD VDG part of Pool B.

In order to take the advantage of tiering both VDG need to be part of same Pool.

You need to take data backup and delete everything. Then reconfigure everything under single Pool. Then restore from backup.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!

*********************************************************************

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1]

@DiagoFernandes 

Another Option you can try is Volume Copy option.

Your SSD VDG usage it seems approx 800GB and Pool B having approx 8TB free. So you can do Volume Copy of volumes part of Pool A to Pool B which is nothing but Physical Copy of the base volume of Pool A. Once Volume Copy or physical copy created in non-SSD VDG of Pool B then you can un-present production volumes from host and re-present newly created Physical copies to same Host. If this is successful then delete SSD VDG which will delete Pool A as well.

Then later create SSD VDG again under Pool B and tiering will start working automatically. Wide striping will take care of rebalancing task between SSD VDG and non-SSD VDG.

You can check the above plan with some specialist Solution Consultant or Architect and go for the same.

Note: Before doing any activity please take full data backup as part of best practice.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!

*********************************************************************

[DiagoFernandes]

Thank you Subhajit. The second options looks more doable.