MD3220 Add disks to DPP and expand Virtual Disk

Here is a link to the administrator guide for your MD3220, & if you look on page 101 it explains how to add unassigned physical disk to a disk pool. http://downloads.dell.com/manuals/common/md32xx_md36xx_administrator%20guide_en%20us.pdf

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

that explains how to add the new drives to the existing DPP...but its not clear how i would assign the extra free space to the existing virtual disk i have in place...

Hello Scott_L1,

So when you add the free space to your DDP any virtual disk that is in the DDP can use the unassigned space.  If you have a thin provisioned virtual disk in your DDP then you will use the steps on page 106 of the administrator guide to expand the space.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

i am going to add 5 disks to my existing 11 disk DDP...can all 5 disks be added to the cabinet at the same time? How about performance hit on the existing DDP while the data is redistributed across the additional 5 drives?

Hello slarkinsol,

Here is the link to the administrator guide & if you look on page 101 it explains how to add the new drives to your disk pool. https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/common/md32xx_md36xx_administrator%20guide_en%20us.pdf

If you have 5 empty slots in your MD3230 then, you can add all the drives at once to your MD3220.  Once all drives are seen then you can add them to your disk pool.  When the data is redistributed to the new drives the I/O impact is low. 

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

I do have 5 open slots....i assume that i can just put all 5 in at once or should i do one at a time and wait until drive is powered up/etc? Inserting the 5 new drives (and not doing any configuration yet in the Mod DIsk Storage Manager app) shouldnt have any affect on existing 11 drive DPP? As i mentioned before, i have had a bad experience with a raid car din the past where i physically added drives and it wiped out the raid config....

Hello slarkinsol,

You can add the 5 drives into your empty slots all at the same time.  The 5 drives should show in MDSM as online, & as unconfigured space. From there you can create a new DDP or virtual disk & assign it to your host.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Hello

can we add new disks to a Powervault 3420 without power off it?

thank you