Is it possible to change a rg geometry in my fas 2050?

[mlorente1]

Hello, I have a question about my FAS2050, hope you can help me.

My FAS 2050 is 18 1 TB SATA disks with RAID-DP and RAID size of 16. Initially came with a raid size of 14, but add 2 disks, I had to change it to 16.

Right now I have two bays free and would like to add two more disks to the aggregate, but the raid size can not grow. I've been seeing that this model can hold up to 23 1TB drives or 2 @ 12 in the optimal configuration. My question is whether there is any way to increase the capacity of the aggregate. Could rg rearrange and rebuild the raid so that is 3 rg of 7 disks in RAID 4 each? This will lose one more parity disk, but win another data disc and the set would be faster in reconstruction.

Could create a second rg in raid 1 and add the aggregate?, Would gain more disk space. The systems would not be balanced, but they have data stored.

Thank you.

[radek_kubka]

Hi,

What version of ONTAP are you on?

Also, when you say you have 18x 1TB drives RG size of 16 - do you mean 16x disks in aggregate plus 2x hot-spares?

Regards,
Radek

[mlorente1]

Yes, 16 data disks (parity and dparity included) + 2 spare disk. Mi ONTAP is 7.3.2

Thanks

[radek_kubka]

For ONTAP 7.3.x the maximum "official" SATA RAID group size is 16. There is a RAID group size override available via PVR, but I am not sure what is the process to obtain this & whether it will be approved.

[mlorente1]

I don't know what is PVR. Anyway, Is it possible to add a second raid group to my aggregate?, one raid-dp 16 disks Rg and another raid1 2 disk rg in the same aggregate. It will be and unbalanced solution, but a solution after all

[aborzenkov]

No that’s not possible. All RG must be of the same type, either all RAID4 or all RAID_DP.

[mlorente1]

OK, so, I only have one option, and it is reorganizate the 16 disks raid-dp rg into 3 three 7 disks raid-4 rg. But, is it posible without destroy data?

[radek_kubka]

PVR stands for Product Variation Requests, i.e. approval of something which normally is not supported, but technically possible. Ask your NetApp rep about this.

Unfortunately you can't shrink your existing RAID groups - unless you destroy the aggregate & build it from scratch.

[mlorente1]

Thanks every body for your help.