CONCATSET and Win2K/NT4

[Lawrence Bowen]

Hi all, this is something that has been puzzling me for some time now. I have posed questions in the past here about extending the size of a SAN disk at the controller level, and I have been told that this is not possible, at least for NT4 or Win2K. However, I have spoken to SAN people who claim to have actually achieved what can be thought of as a "dynamic LUN expansion" using the CONCATSET command. Apparently both NT4 and Win2K can handle the new unit size.

Anyone know why am i getting conflicting advice?

thanks - lawrence bowen

[Lawrence Bowen]

Does no one know about this then?? Not even one person??

[Mike Naime]

Lawrence.

On the older HSG80 technology, LUN expansion is possible if you used the CONCATSET when you setup your LUNS. Since I am primarily presenting LUNS to OS's that did not handle dynamic expansion in the past, I used MIRROR or RAID when creating those LUNS. With the EVA and the MSA, LUN expansion is an easier option to use if the OS will allow it.

One limit in the HSG80 is that you cannot have more than 30 storagesets. If the concatset is also considered a storageset (Docs do not define this), That would mean that I could only have 1/2 the number of storage volumes that I have right now if I have to make the raidset first, and then make that into a concatset.

Dynamic expansion I believe will be available in VMS7.3-2 that is shipping this month. Then I will be getting experience with LUN expansion on the EVA's.

[Lawrence Bowen]

thanks mike

-lawrence