Volume management tasks

Introduction

This section contains procedures for configuring and managing volumes.

Note: Although you can expand volume sizes and the RAID groups assigned to them after you create an initial multiple volume configuration, you cannot split or shrink volumes after you create them.

Creating volumes

You can create up to 23 volumes on a filer. Each volume must contain at least two disks.

To create a new volume, at the system prompt enter

vol create newvol n

where newvol is the name for the new volume and n is the number of disks to use. You must have at least n spare disks available.

After creating a new volume

After you create a new volume on a CIFS filer, you must create shares that refer to the new volume to enable clients to access it.

After you create a new volume on an NFS filer, you must

Update the system /etc/exports file.
Run exportfs.
Add the appropriate mount point information to the /etc/fstab or /etc/vfstab file on clients that mount volumes from the filer.

Adding disks to a volume

To add more disks to an existing volume, enter

vol add vol n

where vol is the name of the volume and n is the number of disks to be added.

Monitoring volume status

To determine volume status, such as size, options, disk assignments, and so on, enter

vol status volume

To view the RAID group and individual disk information for a particular volume, enter

vol status -r volume

To view the RAID group and individual disk information for all volumes, enter

vol status -r

Setting volume options

To set various volume options, enter

vol options volume option value

Converting a mirror into a regular volume

After you use the SnapMirror^TM feature to mirror data to a mirror, you can convert the mirror into a regular volume so that clients can write data to the volume. Enter the following command syntax to convert a mirror to a regular volume:

vol options volume snapmirrored off

Although you can convert a mirror into a regular volume, you cannot set the snapmirrored option to on to convert a regular volume into a mirror. To start using a volume as a mirror, follow the instructions in Chapter 19, "Data Replication Using SnapMirror," to mirror data to the volume.

Caution: After you convert a mirror into a regular volume, the filer stops using it for data replication. If you want to use the volume as a mirror again, you must take the volume off-line and follow the instructions in Chapter 19, "Data Replication Using SnapMirror," to restart the process of replicating data into the volume.

Making a volume inactive

To remove a volume from active use upon next reboot, enter

vol offline volume

Reactivating an off-line volume

To reactivate an off-line volume, enter

vol online volume

Adding a foreign volume

To add a foreign volume, that is, a volume that was previously installed on another filer, you move the disks that contain the volume from the old filer to the destination filer.

Complete the following steps to add a foreign volume.


Step	Action
1	Follow the instructions in the hardware guide to remove the disks from the old filer.
2	Turn off the destination filer and install the disks in the destination filer's disk shelf.
3	Turn on and boot the destination filer. Results When the destination filer boots, it places the foreign volume off-line. If the foreign volume has the same name as an existing volume on the filer, the filer renames it volume_name(1), where volume_name is the original name of the volume. Caution: If the foreign volume is incomplete, repeat Steps 1 and 2 to add the missing disks. Do not try to add missing disks while online--doing so will cause them to become hot spare disks.
4	If the filer renamed the foreign volume because of a name conflict, type the following command to rename the volume: vol rename oldname newname Example The following command renames the volume vol0(1) to vol1: vol rename vol0(1) vol1
5	Type the following command to bring the volume on-line in the new filer, replacing volume_name with the name of the volume: vol online volume_name
6	Enter the following command to confirm that the added volume came on-line: vol status

Destroying a volume

To destroy a volume, turning its disks back into spare disks, follow these steps.


Step	Action
1	To deactivate the volume, enter vol offline volume
2	Enter the `reboot` command to reboot the filer.
3	To destroy the volume, enter vol destroy volume

Renaming a volume

To rename a volume, follow these steps.


Step	Action
1	Enter vol rename oldvolume newvol
2	Update the /etc/exports file and run `exportfs`.
3	Update any CIFS shares that refer to the volume.

Handling volume failures

A volume might fail because of an inconsistent directory or a double-disk failure. If the system does not reboot after a volume failure, take the volume off-line, as follows:

Boot the filer from a system boot diskette into maintenance mode.
Use the vol command to take the failed volume off-line.

If the failed volume was the filer's root volume, you must designate another volume as the new root volume.

Part No. 210-02166
File: disk5.htm
Last updated: 02/24/99 15:46:00