can't remove disk group on MSA 2060

[Luke13]

Hi Team,

I need to remove a disk group from Pool B of my MSA 2060 and reuse the two drives so freed to create a new disk group on Pool A. I need to enlarge available space on Pool A.

The disk group to remove is dgB03 and contains volume data. In the Pool B there is sufficient free space to move (drain) these data:

show disk-groups pool B

Name Size Free Pool Tier % of Pool Own RAID Disks Chk Status Current Job
Job% Sec Fmt Health
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
dgB01 26.3TB 0B B Standard 51 B RAID6 13 64k FTOL
512e OK
dgB02 23.0TB 20.9TB B Performance 44 B RAID6 8 64k FTOL
512e OK
dgB03 1901.1GB 0B B Performance 3 B RAID1 2 N/A FTOL
512e OK
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I try to remove dgB03 i receive this warning message:

"This disk group contains volumes. Deleting the disk group will delete all of the data on the volumes.

Are you sure you want to remove this disk group?"

I would expect another type of message about the draining of the volume data inside the Pool B.

Can You help me?

[venkat_y]

Hello@Luke13,
Removing a disk-group will remove any data on that disk-group so be careful.
Please refer to the below link for more information about removing a disk group from a HPE MSA 2060 storage system.
https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=a00105313en_us&docLocale=en_US (page:146)

Hope this helps!
Regards,
Venkat

[Luke13]

Thank You for your answer,

but all the documentation about MSA 2060 (including the "HPE MSA 1060/2060/2062
CLI Reference Guide in the link") states that "If the group contains volume data, the remove disk-group command
initiates removal and tries to drain (move) all volume data to other groups in the same pool. While data is being drained, the
group's status is VDRAIN. If the pool does not have enough space to contain the volume data" (not my case, i have room) ", the command immediately fails with an error. If draining is successful, an event is logged and the group is removed"

Why, when I select the remove disk-group operation form the SMU, I receive this message warning?

"This disk group contains volumes. Deleting the disk group will delete all of the data on the volumes.

Are you sure you want to remove this disk group?"

The default action should be "draining" the volume data in another Disk Group in the Pool. not "erasing" the volume data  I don't want to delete the volume data, but keep them and remove the Disk Group. The above message is wrong? It is a mistake? Can I proceed or I effectively lost the volume data?

ThankYou

[ArunKKR]

Hi @Luke13,

The data in the disk group which is deleted will be migrated (vdrain) to other disk groups in the Pool provided the other disk groups have enough free space to accommodate the data in the disk group that's being deleted.

I agree that the message that you receive while trying to delete a disk group is a bit misleading.

From the command output shared the dgB02 disk group seems to have enough free space to accommodate the data in dgB03 disk group.

Please note that vdrain is very slow process and cannot be expedited.

It might take days for the vdrain process to get completed based on IOs on MSA volumes.

 The advisory in the below web link would be applicable to MSA 2060 as well:  https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=a00018177en_us&docLocale=en_US

Consider taking a data back up before proceeding with disk group deletion.

[ArunKKR]

Hello @Luke13 ,
 
Let us know if we were able to address your query.
 
If you have no further query, and you are satisfied with the answer then kindly mark the topic as Solved so that it is helpful for all community members.

[Luke13]

Hi ArunKRR,

thank You for your answer.

The dgB03 disk group contains 1901.1GB of volume data, I hope the VDRAIN process doesn't take a long time.

To be more confident about the remove operation: I don't need a particular license's level on my SAN to safely use the VDRAIN feature, right?

This my license:

# show license
...
Maximum Licensable Snapshots: 1024
Base Maximum Snapshots: 64
Licensed Snapshots: 512
In-Use Snapshots: 0
Snapshots Expire: Never
Virtualization: Enabled
Virtualization Expires: Never
Performance Tier: Enabled
Performance Tier Expires: Never
Volume Copy: Enabled
Volume Copy Expires: Never
Replication: Enabled
Replication Expires: Never
VSS: Enabled
VSS Expires: Never

Thanks a lot for your kind answer

[ArunKKR · Accepted solution]

Hi @Luke13,

Unfortunately we cannot predict the time needed to complete the vdrain operation.

2TB of data is large enough, and it might take days to get completed based on my experience.

vdrain doesnt require any separate license.

You already have the advanced license installed on the array as per the command output.