Expand an array with HPE SSA in the online environment

[J-Philippe]

Hello to the community  I can't find a concise explanation if the expanding an array online is possible on a  HPE Smart Array P408i-p SR Gen10  ? 

May I on ESXi expand an array without the need to boot the server (ML110 GEN 10) on the SSA to do it ?

I know there are some CLI to access the SSA "online" but I don't know if this kind of operation is possible.

HPE SSA Admin Guide that I've found are from 2016 :

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c03909334

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=mmr_sf-EN_US000010855

Thanks for you help,

Jean-Philippe

[sudhirsingh]

@J-Philippe

You can do this online using ssacli however please keep data backup before doing this activity.

First add drives to logical drive
/opt/smartstorageadmin/ssacli/bin/# ./ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 1 add drives=2I:1:5,2I:1:6
or add all the unassigned drive
./ssacli ctrl slot=1 ld 1 add drives=allunassigned

then extend logical drive
./ssacli ctrl slot=0 ld 1 modify size=max forced

Regards,

Sudhir

[sudhirsingh]

@J-Philipe

In the above example please use correct controller slot number.

Check installed controllers
#./ssacli ctrl all show status

Once its done, don't forget to expand the VMware datastore.

You can do that from web-client.

or refer below link which will help you to do it from esxcli.

https://michlstechblog.info/blog/esxi-expand-datastore-from-command-line/

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Sudhir

[J-Philippe]

Hello sorry for the delay, than you fr your answer, it will be helpfull.

In both case I have to reboot the ESXi because the SSA VIB is not installed on the server so I thinj I will use the "old school" GUI method this time.

Do you agree that we must wait the end of the RAID expansion before resume to VMWARE  ?

Meaning that if the expand take 10 hours we cannot boot the Proliant server at ESXi layer or the expansion task can be done in background ?

Regards,

Jean-Philippe.