topic Growing flex volume and on DR? in ONTAP Hardware

Growing flex volume and on DR?

PHANI6039 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:13:44 GMT

Hi,

I has got a filer FAS 2050 with dual head. One of the volume got full and I am not sure where to start from

The filer (tap01a) is snap mirrored on to nas01a and the volume that was full is as below

tap01a> df -h apps

Filesystem total used avail capacity Mounted on

/vol/apps/ 108GB 106GB 1997MB 98% /vol/apps/

snap reserve 12GB 2112MB 10175MB 17% /vol/apps/..

tap01a> vol status apps

Volume State Status Options

apps online raid_dp, flex nosnapdir=on

Containing aggregate: 'aggr0'

tap01a> aggr show_space -h aggr0

Aggregate 'aggr0'

Total space WAFL reserve Snap reserve Usable space BSR NVLOG

6206GB 620GB 279GB 5306GB 0KB

Space allocated to volumes in the aggregate

Volume Allocated Used Guarantee

vol0 230GB 1548MB volume

am4 500GB 229GB volume

oracle2 275GB 127GB volume

apps 120GB 108GB volume

s3d1 495GB 386GB volume

s3d2 495GB 359GB volume

s2d1 50GB 15GB volume

s2d2 50GB 5739MB volume

gen2 220GB 70GB volume

isg1 440GB 332GB volume

isg2 660GB 576GB volume

isg3 275GB 229GB volume

isgscratch 250GB 1709MB volume

oracle_64 275GB 144GB volume

Aggregate Allocated Used Avail

Total space 4341GB 2591GB 965GB

Snap reserve 279GB 13GB 265GB

WAFL reserve 620GB 393MB 620GB

From above I can see that apps volume is flex volume and presume it can be grown from available aggregate space (965GB) as indicated above by using below commands.

ex: # vol size <volume name> <+size>

tap01a> vol size apps +30g

Believe by doing the above step the size of the apps volumes will be increased to 150GB on tap01a. Do i need to do anything else here?

I believe we should perform the same steps on DR as well (nas01a) where the volume is read-only as below.

nas01a> vol status apps

Volume State Status Options

apps online raid_dp, flex nosnapdir=on, snapmirrored=on,

snapmirrored fs_size_fixed=on,

read-only guarantee=volume(disabled)

Containing aggregate: 'aggr0'

Now my query is that does it allow me to apply the same steps which I am applying on tap01a as it shows read-only in the status?

Any advice or suggestion will be great.

Thanks,

Phani

Re: Growing flex volume and on DR?

PHANI6039 — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 12:49:05 GMT

Hi,

I will be performing the below steps and let me know if I am missing anything

Here I am increasing at the destination location (nas01a) first as to prevent it from throwing errors while syncing the data regarding the size which should be equal or larger than the source location (tap01a).

Steps:

1. Breaking the mirror temporarily as to make the volume read/write, currently in read only mode

nas01a> snapmirror break apps

2. Change the volume option for our apps volume fs_size_fixed to off to increase the size

nas01a> vol options apps fs_size_fixed=off

3. Increase the size of the volume

nas01a> vol size apps +30g

4. Changing the fs_size_fixed back to on as previously

nas01a> vol options apps fs_size_fixed=on

5. Resync the mirror

nas01a> snapmirror resync –S jv1hmdtap01a:/vol/apps

6. Now I increase the size of volume at the source location (tap01a) as below

tap01a> vol size apps +30g

Could you please let me know if I am missing anything up here so that I can document it which becomes easier next time?

Thanks,

Phani

Re: Growing flex volume and on DR?

matej — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 13:19:31 GMT

Hi Phnai!

I guess that the procedure is just OK, but you should consider configuring thin provisioned volume on destination which is big enough to handle data grow at the primary side.

So you should change destination's volume gurantee to file (or none) and increase it much more than just 30GB (maybe a TB ).

Cheers,

Matej

Re: Growing flex volume and on DR?

PHANI6039 — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 13:55:14 GMT

Hi Matej,

Thanks for the reply.

I am new to netapp. could you please let me know in detail.

At the destination end i can see the apps volume options as below and guarantee volume disabled.

nas01a> vol status apps

Volume State Status Options

apps online raid_dp, flex nosnapdir=on, snapmirrored=on,

snapmirrored fs_size_fixed=on,

read-only guarantee=volume(disabled)

Containing aggregate: 'aggr0'

So what do you meant by "So you should change destination's volume gurantee to file (or none) and increase it much more than just 30GB" Cant expand into TB as havent got that much free space available in the aggregate (First post).

Thanks,

Phani

Re: Growing flex volume and on DR?

bsti — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:50:39 GMT

Now my query is that does it allow me to apply the same steps which I am applying on tap01a as it shows read-only in the status?

Yes, the command will run successfully, and you are taking the correct approach. The only thing to keep in mind is that you will probably not see the volume space on the SM Destination change until you do an update from the source.

What this poster is advising you to do is to set the volume guarantee from "volume" to "none". You do this will the following command:

vol options [vol name] guarantee none

Then he is recommending you set the volume size at your destination very large. Since you enabled no volume guarantee, this means the volume won't actually occupy the size in the aggregate you specify until it's actually used.

Personally, I don't know that I recommend that approach. You need to watch your volume and aggregate sizes very very closely when you thin provision, and doing this at the destination takes special care. The approach does work and is effiicient but opens you to the possibility of accidentally allocating more space than you have and not being able to bring your volumes online.

Before even considering that, I'd resolve the guarantee-volume(disabled) status you see on the apps volume at your DR site. The guartantee-volume(disabled) status of your volume apps means that you don't have enough space in the aggregate to set it to it's full size now. This actually isn't a good thing. I'd check the free space in the aggregate at your DR site and see if you can make some more space first. As it is now, if you fail over to your DR site, you will not be able to bring your apps volume online until you either set it to guarantee=none (thin provisioned) or shrink it.

If you are interested in thin provisioning, I'd highly recommend reading this and fully understanding it before implementing it in your environment:

http://www.netapp.com/us/system/pdf-reader.aspx?pdfuri=tcm:10-60390-16&m=tr-3965.pdf http://www.netapp.com/us/system/pdf-reader.aspx?pdfuri=tcm:10-60390-16&m=tr-3965.pdf