Suggestion required on Data movement across physical volumes

[Akram Shaik]

Dear,

We have a volume group having 38 disks - Totals to 515 GB. Each disk size 13.5 GB

There are 16 LV's occupying 170GB . Rest is free.

All the 16 LV's have a distributed policy which are evenly distributed across all the 38 Physical volumes

Now we are trying to consolidate the space among these disks such that we can have a maximum of remaining 345 GB released.

Any suggestions on how it can be done

Best regards.
Akram.

[Rita C Workman]

If I've read this right - you have allocated all your diskspace to the 16 lvols. So you have no movement within that volume group.

You could backup to tape, reduce lvol's and then restore your data from tape -OR- You could create a new volume group the way you now want it and move your data. Then remove the old volume group and free up the disk.

It is a good practice to have disk added to a volume group for easy expansion - but to NOT distribute it UNTIL you need it. Makes it easier to remove a disk, should you need to without disrupting everyhing else.

Just a thought,
Rita

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Akram,

IMO

Best: shut down all apps, back up with fbackup.
Restore from tape to new disk area.

Next best:
Shut down alluser apps.
configure system to see both storages.
cp -rp mountpoint to mountpoint

By network:
scp -rp
# Problem here is permissions are not always kept.

tar the files up.
scp the file to new server
tar xvf the tarball
# VERRRRRRRRRRRRRRY SLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW

SEP

[Akram Shaik]

Hi,

Thanks for response.

Intention is to move data across the physical volumes. I am not able to get additional disks or tapes now.

I Cannot afford for a downtime and also I do not want to end end up in a partial distribution policy.

PS: The LV's are not mounted . used as raw logical volumes

regards,
akram.

[Rita C Workman]

Akram,

If you have enough space on the lvols to move/copy the data from one lvol to another thus freeing up the space, then yes you can do that. You can do simple copy from one mountpoint to another, and then clean up once you confirm everything copied. Don't recommend using the "mv" command, as if anything goes wrong you loose both.

But if you can not make a tape copy of everything before you start, then you are flying without a net. Not recommended.

Rgrds,
Rita

[Akram Shaik]

Dear,

These logical volumes are used as raw logical volumes by ORACLE and using cp or taking backup of file systems is not feasible.


I guess the only way is to get new disks of 170GB. Then break the mirror of the LV's scattered throughtout some total 500 GB disks and free up the 330 GB for future use.

may be an idea

[Mark Ellzey]

Akram,

You've stated that the LV's are used as Oracle Raw storage. If this is the case, you will have to user one of the Oracle backup utilities, like RMON to backup and restore the data.

I suppose you could use dd, but that would simply duplicate your problem, not solve it.

Regards,
Mark