MSA 2040 Unallocated space on virtual volume

[LewisMcDaniels]

Please can someone help me understand why I can only add uncommitted space to a volume, how do I expand my volume into the unallocated space assigned in the pool? 

I will upload some photos once this is posted. 

[LewisMcDaniels]

Images uploaded via imgur as cannot figure out how to do it on the HPE community site. 

https://imgur.com/a/uh5E79g

[LewisMcDaniels]

The volume size is 8080.9GB, Allocated, 6023GB, can I not expand the allocated into the remaining 2TB?

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1]

What is the MSA model and firmware version of controllers?

As per user guide "Unallocated space is space that is designated for a pool but has not yet been allocated by a volume within that pool."

So I don't see a reason why volumes part of Pool B can't use 2599.9GB unallocated space. You no need to expand anything. Volumes will allocate space as in when it's required from the unallocated space of that pool.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

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[LewisMcDaniels]

It is an MSA 2040 SAS and I believe the firmware version is GL225R003. 

I understand that the volume should automatically use the unallocated space but I need to expand the volume itself to increase the size of a vmfs datastore, which I cannot do until the volume is expanded. 

[support_s]

System recommended content:

1. HPE MSA 2040 User Guide

2. HPE MSA 2040 SAN Storage - Document List

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Thank you for being a HPE valuable community member.

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1]

Your Volume size shows 8080.9GB which means this is provisioned size and at the VMware side you should see same size only. If size different then your unit base may not be same. Operating systems usually show volume size in base 2. Disk drives usually show size in base 10

Inside Storage space allocation internal to MSA and VMware has nothing to do with it. Once any new data getting written at the vmfs level then at the backend space allocation happened at Storage.

If your Volume provision size in MSA and VMware datastore size not same then only you need to modify size of datastore in vmfs level.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!

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[LewisMcDaniels]

The volume in vcenter does show correctly as 8TB. However I need to expand past this, how can I do this when I cannot expand the volume on the MSA using the 2TB unallocated? 

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1]

In MSA if you want to increase the size of the Volume then follow SMU guide "Modifying a volume" section. 

"Optional: In the Expand By field, enter the size by which to expand the volume. If overcommitting the physical
capacity of the system is not allowed, the value cannot exceed the amount of free space in the storage pool. You
can use any of the following units: MiB, GiB, TiB, MB, GB, TB.
Volume sizes are aligned to 4-MB boundaries. When a volume is created or expanded, if the resulting size would
be less than 4 MB, it will be increased to 4 MB. If the resulting size would be greater than 4 MB, it will be
decreased to the nearest 4-MB boundary."

Please try to understand we are dealing with Thin provision volume which means you need to define volume size and actual space gets allocated at the backend when actual data write happens.

So after you modify the volume size you need to take care at the vmfs level accordingly.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!

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