As your storage needs change, you might need to resize a disk to hold more data or shrink the disk to to make space available on the storage system volume.
- The ability to shrink a disk is supported only on Windows Server 2008 and later.
- A good time to expand a disk is right after you have expanded your storage system volumes.
- A LUN cannot be expanded to more than ten times its original size.
- Remember that LUNs with MBR-style partitions have a size limit of 2 TB, and LUNs with GPT-style partitions have a storage system size limit of 16 TB.
- Understand the storage management implications of resizing the LUN volume size.
- If it is necessary to restore a LUN from a Snapshot copy made before the LUN was resized, SnapDrive for Windows automatically resizes the LUN to the size of the Snapshot copy and performs the restore.
When the disk is restored, SnapDrive reconnects the disk. If you restore a LUN from a Snapshot copy taken before the LUN was resized, the LUN will return to its former size before it was reduced or enlarged. After the restore, data added to the LUN after it was resized must be restored from a Snapshot copy taken after it was resized.
- When creating a quorum disk, make sure it is the size recommended by Microsoft for your Windows cluster setup.
- While a LUN is being resized, it might not be available for use, so plan your disk resizing at a time when applications are less likely to be accessing the disk.
Note: SnapDrive for Windows cannot shrink LUNs by more than half the size. This is a Microsoft Support limitation. In Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2, you might not be able to shrink a volume by more than half the original size.
