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Merge storage pools?
Hi everyone
I would like to know if it is possible to merge multople storage pools into one? We do have some customers who do have multiple Storage Pools with different kind of disks and Raid sets within. They ask if it is possbile to merge those into one.
From my point of view it is not possible... but maybe you know a way how to merge. I did recommend buying additional disks create a pool with enough capacity and move the LUNs to this one. After that destroy the old pools and merge the disks into this new pool.
Based on the type of disks choosing RAID Level and Count and activate fast VP and Fast Cache for best performance. What is your thinking and experience on this topic?
Thank you and cheers
DukeR1337
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February 24th, 2016 03:00
They would like to use Fast VP resp. Tiering and atm the pools are seperated by disk type.....
Thank you
brettesinclair
715 Posts
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February 24th, 2016 03:00
Not possible.
As you've intimated, only option is more disks, new pool, migrate LUNs, remove old pool and then use the now unbound disks to expand the new pool.
Do they have a reason they want to merge them ? I always have multiple pools.
dynamox
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February 24th, 2016 07:00
I never have multiple pools
. I like to "pool" my resources together unless i have very specific use cases for segregation.
dynamox
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February 24th, 2016 09:00
i do not, the performance that we get from our VNX's is good enough for general workload. We don't get into separating logs from database, doing vertically striped metas like we used to do back in the days. Probably mostly driven by the fact that anything that is really response time sensitive goes to VMAX. I have that luxury
ZaphodB
195 Posts
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February 24th, 2016 09:00
So, do you use multiple arrays to do things like separate databases from their log files
?
chrismahon
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February 24th, 2016 12:00
Another reason there is a need for multiple pools is to limit your fault domains. As an EMC Best Practice, we create multiple pools to separate I/O workloads and to limit failure domains. A storage pool is made up of multiple private RAID groups behind the scenes. In the unlikely scenario that two private RAID groups fail for the same storage pool, the pool will go offline. Also, you may want to enable fast cache for some pools and not others. Let me know if you have any other questions!
brettesinclair
715 Posts
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February 25th, 2016 01:00
That's fair enough Dynamox. I segregate for workload isolation and fd segregation. I also have some Pools that don't require FAST cache so 'hive' them out too.
Horses for courses
kelleg
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February 26th, 2016 08:00
I would say that segregating database LUNs into separate Pools is still an EMC best practice. We've see a number of performance cases where this is a problem, especially when you have a three tier Pool with FAST cache enabled and you put the DB, Logs and Temp in the same Pool. This is more of a problem on VNX1 than on VNX2, but it is still recommended.
Similar to issues with Reserve LUNs sharing the same Pool as the source LUNs when using Snapview Snapshots. We still recommend for performance reasons that you use a separate Raid Group for the RLP LUNs (the trespassing of the RLP when assigned issue). Same for Clones - you want the Clones is a separate Pool and you want to be very sure that the Source LUN and the Clone are owned by the same SP to prevent trespassing the Clone when you Sync.
glen