how Long time to extend a disk

[Layth Shasha]

I want to extend a partiotion/disk using diskpart.
i have finished the previous steps of adding and presenting the disks to the SAN.
i have a TWO node Cluster with W2000 advanced server, intel based.
I have run a test run on a small volume using diskpart I extended it by 23 Gegs to become a toatl of 60 gegs in 3 seconds.
now My main volume is around 400 Gegs in size and i want it to be extended by another 600 gegs to the total amount of 1000 Gegs " Tera Byte", my concern how long that will take so that i can plan a proper outage, or should i do it in increments ???
Thanks

[Steven Clementi]

The extend should take about the same amount of time.. 3 seconds.. or maybe 4 or 5 seconds, but not much longer that that.

I could test it out romorrow at work if you like.


Steven

[Layth Shasha]

really only seconds !
if you can test it that would be great
Thanks

[Steven Clementi]

The only thing that diskpart really does is move the end of partition point to the end of the free space. Windows doesn't even need to format the space since it will do that part during write i/o to new sections of disk.


Ok, maybe it will take a few seconds more like 10 seconds, but it should not take more than that.

Another utility you can use when you have an EVA is Storage Volume Growth. It is HP's supported extension utility on Windows using EVA Storage. Cost is arounf 500 dollars though.

I'll see what I can do tomorrow.


Steven

[Frank de Vries]

The extend will take only seconds.

The reason for this that you are simply
allocating block to a partitions, as far as the command is concerned.
Thus in fact the command only writes
and entry into the header of the partition to say begin block and end block that are allocated.

So provided you have free blocks left
on the disk the administrative part
for the command are simple and should take
only seconds.

Hope this helps,
regards,

[Steven Clementi · Accepted solution]

It took 3 seconds.

I went from 400GB to 1TB.

Steven

[Layth Shasha]

Thank you.
now i can starting planning the outage.
3 hours for backup data
15 min shutting node 2
1 min diskpart.
startup node 2
bring other resources online.
hopefully the data stays intact.

Thank you stephen & Frank