Upgrading Boot Drive

[Morris Makuch]

I have a boot drive that is mirrored and is running out of room. I would like to replace it with a higher capacity drive but not sure on which method. Should I create a make_recovery -A tape, replaces the drives, reboot from the make_recovery tape and then rebuild the mirror? Or sure I use Copyutil from the Support Plus CD to create a image to tape, replace the drives, restore from tape and rebuild the mirror? Which method is faster or is there a better way that I am not aware of.

[Joel Shank]

make_recovery is faster and the preferred way to do this. It is also the most straight foreward way to do it.

JLS

[Rick Garland]

The make_recovery method will let you accomplishthis task faster.

The other method you mentioned will work as well.

[Byron Myers]

Morris,
Here is another way, not necessarily better or faster. Mirror the current OS to the new, larger drive, then reduce out the old, smaller disk. You can then add the second new drive and mirror to it. If Your boot disk is external, like in a Jamaica enclosure, then this can be done online. If Your boot disk is internal, then a couple of outages will be needed to swap disk.

[Morris Makuch]

Thanks for the replies. One additional question I have in regards to make_recovery -A, does it backup all volumes in vg00? I have a volume /dev/vg00/oracle and if make_recovery does not back this to tape, then I will have to do a separate restore of this volume.

[Rick Garland]

The -A option specifies that the entire root disk/volume group is to be included in the make_recovery tape.

To see for yourself (or make any modifications you see fit), check the /var/opt/ignite/recovery area. You will find the makrec.append and arch.include files in there. You can specify and/or ensure files you want are on the tape.

[Alan Riggs]

Be aware that your VG00 was most likely not created to support the larger drive size you are adding. You can do this with make_recovery, but what I would do, since you are mirroed, is:

reduce the mirrors
reduce one drive out of vg00
import that drive as vg_root
boot off of vg_root drive
remove vg00
recreate vg00 using new, larger, disk
copy data from vg_root to vg00 (using find | cpio)
boot off of nre vg00.

If all looks good, remove vg_root, add second large disk, and remirror.

[Timothy Czarnik]

Morris,

The best, fastest, and easiest way (that I've found) is to use the make_recovery -A tape, shutdown, swap drive, boot from tape and watch it run. If you need to change info about drive size, extents, etc..., interrupt the boot when asked and make the changes there. As always, its a good idea to have a backup. Start to finish, this should take about 2 hours.

If you leave the original root disk in place and tell make_recovery to install to the new disk, you can then mount the old root drive after the system comes up (to /old_root or something) and have access to all of the files on the old root disk as well.

Let the make_recovery do the work for you!

-Tim

[Alan Riggs]

Tim is correct that make_recovery is easiest. But disk to disk copy is faster, and I hate waiting.

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