Expand Volumes on PS6100E

Question

I have a PS6100E with 48TB that has almost 30TB reserved.

I am running SAN HQ and EqualLogic Group Manager but not VSM. I have installed VSM but I cannot seem to login. So I want to do the expansion of volumes using GM and the vSphere Client Datastore Volume Properties.

I know I can go into the Group Manager, Select a Volume, Modify Settings, Go to the Space Tab, and increase the Volume Size. Then I can go to the Datastore in the vSphere Client and increase its capacity. I just want to be certain this is the optimum way to do this and if there are any other steps I should be doing.

Should I power down all the VMs on one volume and then migrate them to another before expanding and increasing the datastores? I know the documentation says I can do this on the fly but I'm cautious.

Thanks in advance,

Dave

dkoehler · Answer

Don,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I am running ESXi v5.1 and VMFS v5.54. I currently am allocating 20% of the volume for reserve space but I think that's too high and want to reduce it to 10% like you.

Good suggestion on the new volume(s) as I would indeed be adding VMs to the datastore.

The volumes aren't being replicated but I am replicating some individual VMs.

The Storage Array Firmware is 7.0.1 so I should be good there.

Also, I have 4.0 of VSM and, you're right, this might be a Java issue. I'll see if I can resolve that.

Thanks much,

Dave

dkoehler · Answer

Good info on the reclaiming deleted space. It turns out, though, for whatever reason, only 2 of the 3 volumes are thin provisioned. It appears that I can check the box for Thin Provisioned Volume on the volume not thin provisioned. I'm not sure if that's advisable or not but will check before doing so.

I would want to expand these volumes during non-production times and then can upgrade the FW to 7.0.5 at that same time.

I wasn't aware of having to use web gui for the VSM. Thanks.

Is it good practice to move my VMs off the volume before expanding? I will be adding new volumes and this isn't a concern with them but I do want to expand at least one of my current volumes.

Thanks,

dave

dkoehler · Answer

Don, related to this expanding volume inquiry, I have decided to create some new volumes as well so I have the smaller volumes rather than one or two large ones. I created a 5TB volume but notice that the iSCSI connections are not the same as the other 3 volumes originally installed. The other 3 volumes have connections for all 4 hosts (16 connections) but the new volume only has connections to one host (4 connections). Before I have vSphere recognize the new volume, I need to correct the iSCSI connections, I presume. I'm not seeing where to add the iSCSI connections in my group manager. I've read to run the iSCSI Initiator but am not sure where that is. Thanks in advance for any help.

Dave

dkoehler · Answer

When I Modify Settings for that volume and go to the Advanced tab there isn't any 'multihost access' option. There is, however, a check box that is already checked for 'Allow simultaneous connections from initiators with different IQNs'.

dkoehler · Answer

Don, Thanks for all your help!  Yep, I did the rescan and now the connections show up in Group Manager. vSphere still doesn't see the volume though. Missing a step somewhere.

Origin3k · Answer

Just an additional information. If you add storage to a esxi node which is part of a vSphere Cluster the vCenter trigges a HBA Rescan on all members of the cluster. So at the end all Hosts see the new Datastore.

The above is only true for "Block" Storage and not for IP based File Storage like NFS.

For next time just install the Dell EQL Virtual Storage Manager (VSM) as an Appliance and you can provisioning a new EQL Volume and vSphere Datastore from the vSphere WebClient in one step driven by the Wizard.

Regards,

Joerg

dkoehler · Answer

Yep, just finished the Add Storage part after I sent my last post. Looks like everything is working just fine. Thanks again for your help.

EqualLogic

Expand Volumes on PS6100E

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