Upgrading disks, how to proceed?

[Mike Prozinski]

Hello. I am planning to replace the existing hard drive on my system with a larger one. I currently have 1 4GB SCSI disk, using logical volumes. I want to replace this disk with a new, larger disk, and copy over all of the existing files onto the new disk. I'm wondering what the best way to preceed is. I'm running HP-UX 10.2 and need to do this to 30 systems. All are networked.


Is it possible to use dd to do this? How do I handle the different disk sizes?

Should I consider using Ignite? fbackup? tar to tape?

Any advice on how to proceed would be appreciated.

[Roger Baptiste]

<>

Do you have only VG00 on
your system??

Is this 4Gb disk the only
disk on the system??

Does it have a mirror disk??

< I want to replace this disk with a new, larger disk, and copy over all of the existing files onto the new disk. I'm wondering what the best way to preceed is. >>

If you have only VG00 on
the system and this is the
only disk in VG00, the simplest
way would be to a
/opt/ignite/bin/make_tape_recovery -A -v -C -d /dev/rmt/0mn

this will copy the disk contents to the tape.

Once you are done with this,
shut the system, replace the disk and boot with the tape.
Then use the option to restore the contents of the tape to the new disk.

That's all.

<>

no need for dd in this case.
Even different disk sizes will be taken care by ignite
tool .

<>
since it is only vg00, use
ignite. IF you do not have
ignite, download it from
http://www.software.hp.com
and proceed as mentioned above.

HTH
raj

[Uday_S_Ankolekar]

Hi,


Considering the minimum downtime the following would be process

1. pvcreate the new disks
2. vgextend the existing VG to the new disks
pvmove the existing lvs from current disks to the new disks

Once the data has been moved to the new disks, vgreduce the old disks from the VG.
check the man pages for (vgextend and pvmove)

It's better to have backup of your database before you proceed

Goodluck

-USA..

[Patrick Wallek]

Is the disk that you are replacing your VG00 disk?

If it is, I would advise you to use Ignite/UX to do this.

Install Ignite.
Make a make_tape_recovery tape, or two.
Back up the rest of your data, if any.
Shut down the system.
Replace the disk.
Boot from the make_tape_recovery tape and let it reinstall everything.

If the disk is not a vg00 disk, and you have no room to add the new disk without removing the old one, then you'll just have to back up all of your data, replace the disk, recreate the VGs and LVs and restore your data.

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi Mike:

First, if this is vg00, then use Ignite's 'make_tape_recovery' and reinstall. Choose the advanced options and (re)size your filesytems to your choice.

# make_tape_recovery -x inc_entire=vg00 -I -v -a /dev/rmt/0mn

If this isn't vg00, then you can create a new volume group, associated logical volumes, and a set of "dummy mount points". Then do this for each filesystem:

# cd /old_mount_point
# find . | cpio -pudlmv /new_mount_point

When done, edit /etc/fstab replacing the "old_mount_point" with the "new_mount_point" and remove the "old" ones.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Volker Borowski]

Hi,

if you go Udays way, do not forget to make the new disk bootable with lvlnboot.

Volker

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi (again) Mike:

One of the reasons for (re)creating your volume group from scratch, when you are "upsizing" your physical disk, is to set (explicitly, or by default) LVM geometry values that cannot be changed later -- 'max_pe', 'max_pv', 'max_lv' and 'pe_size'. See the man pages for 'vgcreate' for more information. Suffice to say that these parameters can *only* be set at vg-creation.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Mike Prozinski]

WOW! I'm amazed at the speed an quality of the replies.

This is the only disk on he system, and is the vg00 disk, (no mirrors).

It sounds like Ignite is the way to go. I've been wanting to try Ignote out for a while, so this gives me an excuse.

Uday's way seems kind of interesting too. I have a system I can play with (with no consequence if it goes wrong! to try out these methods, so maybe I'll try that one too.

Thanks a lot people!

[Santosh Nair_1]

Rather than using Ignite make_recovery tapes, what about setting up an Ignite server and creating a golden image of the system that you can push out to all the systems. This would be much faster than using tapes and all the systems wouldbe configured similarly (not sure if that's what you want though).

-Santosh

[John Bolene]

Absolutely use Ignite.

We went from 2 gig to 4 gig drives about 2 years ago on our C110's.

It was a teadious process to do 150 servers but it worked well.

[Mike Prozinski]

I like the idea of using an Ignite server, rather than taking a tape drive around to all of the systems. The systems are fairly unique, so I would need to create a lot of "golden images", but I have access to a server that should have no problems handling this.