Disk management tasks

About this section

This section contains procedures for managing the filer's disks and RAID groups.

Setting the size of a volume's RAID groups

To set the RAID group size of a volume when you create it, enter the command

vol create volume -r n 

where volume is the name of the volume and n is the number of disks you want in each RAID group. Every RAID group must contain at least two disks.

Changing the size of a RAID group after creating it

To change the size of a RAID group, enter the command

vol volume options raidsize size 

where size is the number of disks you want in the RAID group.


Note: You can only change the size of the last RAID group in a volume. You cannot change the size of RAID groups after they have been filled.


Installing new disks

New disks are ones that have never been used. Complete the following steps to install new disks.

Step Action
1 Install one or more disks according to the hardware guide for your disk shelf. The system displays a message confirming that one or more disks were installed, then waits 15 seconds as the disk(s) is turned on. The system recognizes the disks as a hot spare disks.

Note: If you added multiple disks, they might require 25-40 seconds to come up to speed as the system checks the device addresses on each adapter and returns to normal operation.


2 Type the following command:
sysconfig -r
3 Check the sysconfig -r output to verify that the new disk has been added.

Adding disks to volumes

To add new disks to a volume, follow these steps:

  1. Enter the command
    sysconfig -r 
    

    to verify that there are spare disks available for you to add.

  2. Add the disks to a volume by entering the command
    vol add volume ndisks
    

    where volume is the name of the volume and ndisks is the number of disks you want to add to the volume.

Refer to the na_vol(1) man page for details about adding disks to volumes.

Removing a failed disk

When a raid disk has failed, you need not enter any commands--just remove the failed disk from the disk shelf.

Removing a hot spare disk

Complete the following steps if you want to swap disks because you want to use a hot spare disk in another filer:

Step Action
1 Type the following command and use the output to determine the disk number:
sysconfig -r
2 Type the following command to spin down the disk, replacing disk_name with the name of the disk from the output in Step 1:
disk remove disk_name
After the disk stops spinning, the disk is ready to be removed.
3 Remove the disk from the filer following the instructions in the hardware guide for your filer model. File service resumes 15 seconds after you remove the disk.

Removing an active file system disk

Complete these steps if you want to remove a disk because it is logging excessive errors.

Step Action
1 Type the following command and use the output to determine the disk number:
sysconfig -r
2 Type the following command to fail the disk, using the disk name from the output in Step 1 in place of disk_name:
disk fail disk_name

Note: The disk fail command permanently marks a disk as failed. You cannot reuse the disk; you must replace it.


After the disk fail command, the system operates in degraded mode, which means that a disk is missing from the RAID group.
3 Remove the disk from the filer following the instructions in the hardware guide for your filer model. File service resumes 15 seconds after you remove the disk.

Copyright © 1999, Network Appliance, Inc. All rights reserved.

Part No. 210-02334
File: disk4.htm
Last updated: 04/26/99 08:11:15