Big problem with ax4-5 vault

Disk Pool 1 that you see in the picture is the "User level" disk pool. Vault drives are created on the first four drives of an AX4 and they are private RAID Groups -- which means that they are not visible in Navisphere Express.

You can confirm by checking the usable space on the fourth drive (Disk 3). The usable space on the first four drives should be a little less (17GB on each drive) than the other drives -- this is because of the vault information that is stored on those first four disks.

Hi Avi,

thanks for your response.

I know that there is a "seed region", and not all space is available due the o.s.

But my problem is that a I cannot add the "disk 3" to my vault and I don't know I can do it . If you look at my screenshot  you can see  "N/A" on disk 3. It seems that my vault is compose by 3 disk and not 4 disk

So my question is: Ho can I put "again" the fourth disk ( disk 3 ) to my vault

thanks

Matteo

Matteo,

Your terminology is a little off that is why Avi gave you that answer. As Avi stated the 'vault' is a region that is not user accessible or manageable. What you want to do is add disk 3 to Disk Pool 1, not add disk 3 to the vault (it is already configured as part of the vault). I am not familiar with the AX line of arrays but is there a procedure for adding disks to an existing disk pool in Navisphere help? I don't know if it is possible to expand  a disk pool.

If you are asking about how to expend the disk pool on AX4-5 - then follow these steps

1.From the "Manage Disk Pools" select the disc pool you would like to expend

2.On the selected "disc pool details" screen click expand button.

3.On the "expend disk pool" screen select the disks which you would like to add to existed disk pool.

4.On the same screen start the expansion by clicking "Apply"

I think you missed Gearoid's point

Bor4s wrote: If you are asking about how to expend the disk pool on AX4-5 - then follow these steps 1.From the "Manage Disk Pools" select the disc pool you would like to expend 2.On the selected "disc pool details" screen click expand button. 3.On the "expend disk pool" screen select the disks which you would like to add to existed disk pool. 4.On the same screen start the expansion by clicking "Apply"

See emc208409 A primus I wrote a while ago

In short

According to EMC Engineering you cannot use any of the vault slots (for  example, 0,1,2,3 or 4) for RAID group expansion. This is by design across the  CLARiiON platforms.

Gearoid

Hi Matteo,

Glad you got this figured out. I always learn something on these forums!

Good luck with the move.

Aran

Hi,

Sorry for my bad terminology, when I talk about "vault" I meam AX disks 0,1,2,3 or cx 0,1,2,3,4.

This afternoon I've found that a collegue of mine before the first inizialization has removed the fourth disk and place it in slot 11 and used as host spare, when we bought the storage it was composed by four disks.

The first raid group was created with 3 disks (0,1,2), after some mouth we have bought other disk to fill the firts DAE ( disk 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10).

And yesterday I've found the problem and I've opened this discussion.

The screenshot it's the first step of expand process, when it can be select the disk to expand a disk pool. The fourth disk is N/A. I want use this disk to expand disk pool 1.

AranH wrote: At this point then if you want to use disk 3 in the disk pool 1 then you will have to backup the virtual disks in that disk pool, destroy it and create a new disk pool using disks 0-3.

Now I try to move data to another array and destroy disk pool 1 and create new disk pool with 0,1,2,3

Thanks all

Matteo

Hi all

I've solved the problem

I've migrated all data, destroy the luns and disk pool 1. After that I've been able to recreate disk pool with 4 disks 0,1,2,3

Last question. Now how can I be sure that the fourh disk as a vault area inside it, apart the "lost space".

thanks

Matteo

Matteo,

The lost space on one of the vault drives is the only confirmation as an enduser of the storage array that you will see. You really don't have to worry about it, as the vault is not anything that we as endusers can destroy or modify. It is a hidden partition that we have no access to so therefore cannot do anything to affect it (other than removing the physical drives).