Volume Expansion EVA6000 and OpenVMS

[HarrinG]

I am running an Alpha ES47 OpenVMS 7.3-2 with an EVA6000 SAN. I recently attempted to expanded a number of my volumes on the EVA and using the SET VOL/LIMIT and SET VOL/SIZE commands.

However, what I found was that while the expansion limit on the volume increased (2148069376 Blocks) I could only get the volume size to increase to 83886080 blocks and in one case the voulme size will not increase at all even with the expansion limit showing 2148069376 Blocks.

I reviewed all the info on the forum and I what info I have and I have not found anything about this problem.

I need this figure out a solution before I move the server to production. Any help would be appreciated

Thanks

[Robert Gezelter]

HarrinG,

SET VOLUME only affects the OpenVMS structures on the volume.

What are the sizes of the containers on the EVA?

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[HarrinG]

I reset the size from 20 GB to 40 GB. The volumes see that the space is there (Expansion limit is correct. I saw your post on this subject but I did not what the have to rebuild the volumes if I could get away with it. I was really hoping that set vol/limit and set vol/size would work.

[James Cordill]

HarrinG, Maybe I'm missing something here but you said the volume size increased to 83 million blocks, that is ~40GB's....
The set vol/size command will only increase the size to the limit size or actual volume container size, which ever is less, in this case 83 million blocks, the volume container size.
Hope that helps. -Jim

[Hoff]

I've seen no evidence that a (patched) disk enabled for dynamic volume expansion (DVE) doesn't work.

I'm entirely confused around your expectations here, and around the configuration, and around what does and what does not work here. (Alternatively, this question might be crystal clear and I need another cup of coffee this morning; work with me here...)

The following are some random comments around DVE and around some items to check.

Either the disk is enabled for expansion or it isn't.

Either the EVA presents the storage or it doesn't.

Either the host patches are current or not. If not, get there. There *are* DVE patches.

Either the CD-based disk BACKUP restore works and preserves the settings or (as is typical with the V7.3-2 CD) not. You need use V8.2 or later CD, or a side-booted version of V7.3-2 with patches applied.

And I'd not expect a DVE-enabled disk to size itself past whatever the EVA is reporting for the disk size, for that matter. Check that. You can't have a disk bigger than what the disk is currently sized for. The /LIMIT can be bigger than the reported disk size, but not the /SIZE value.

[Robert Gezelter]

HarrinG,

If the storage bitmap cannot accomodate the extra size, then that is a problem, as I noted in " Migrating OpenVMS Storage Environments without Interruption or Disruption", notes available at: http://www.rlgsc.com/hptechnologyforum/2007/1512.html

The "volume expansion" capability in effect allows one to move the "fence" at the end of the volume, it does not have the capability to restructure the volume on the fly. A similar limit occurs with the index file in a slightly different context. Dramatically large volumes often require correspondingly larger numbers of file headers, and there are limits on the number of extents in the index file.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[HarrinG]

I apparently need to drink a lot more coffee. You are correct that the expansion did work what was throwing me was the expansion size limit showed a lot larger than 40 GB but that is something to explore another time.

Thanks for showing me the error of my ways.