upgrade disks on VA7110

[D.Blond]

Hi,
want some help, I have following setup.
1.two server RP4440 os hpux 11.11
2. two storages is hp model VA7110 with twelve 36 gb hdd configured in auto-raid.
3. we use lvm-mirror between the two storages
Now we want to upgrade storage disks from 36 gb to 73 gb.
what is the better scenario.

regards

[Bernhard Mueller · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I guess the easiest way would be to rip and replace the disks one by one, and run a few scripts checking lv's are synced, array rebuild done, before you r'n'r the next disk. the advantage is that you do not need any downtime.

another somewhat disruptive approach would be to disconnect one VA replace all disks in one go, format the array, recreate all luns as before, connect it and resync LVM mirrors. or lvreduce and lvextend the mirrors.
then let it run for a week then do the other VA in the same fashion

anyway the re-syncing will take quite some time hence I'd prefer option 1, *if* it does not mean to spent days just walking to the VA and back again and again....

Regards,
Bernhard

[Bernhard Mueller]

Hi,

one additional note:
before you begin to replace the disks make sure you have sufficient *free* space before you add a *larger* disk.

The VAs reserves the space of the *largest* disk as "active hot spare" (for each redundancy group). So if you have allocated all available space to LUNs and replace a 36GB disk with a 73GB disk the VA will not be able to allocate enough space as active hot spare.

An alternative would be to *add* two 73GB disks and then replace only 10 out of the 12 36GB disks, but this does not work if you need to get rid of all 36GB disks.

Regards,
Bernhard

[Chris Howard]

With the hot spare issue, could I turn off hot spare, then insert the first two 73GB drives
one at a time letting them format and settle in, then turn hot spare back on?