How to Expand an Existing RAID-0 Volume

A concatenated stripe enables you to expand an existing stripe. For example, if a stripe has run out of storage capacity, you convert it into a concatenated stripe. Doing so allows you to expand your storage capacity without having to back up and restore data.

This procedure assumes that you are adding an additional stripe to an existing stripe.

Do not create volumes larger than 1Tbyte if you expect to run the Solaris software with a 32-bit kernel. Additionally, do not create volumes larger than 1 Tbyte if you expect to use a version of the Solaris OS prior to the Solaris 9 4/03 release. See Overview of Multi-Terabyte Support in Solaris Volume Manager for more information about multi-terabyte support in Solaris Volume Manager.

Before You Begin

Check Prerequisites for Creating Solaris Volume Manager Components and Background Information for Creating RAID-0 Volumes.

To create a concatenated stripe, use one of the following methods:

• From the Enhanced Storage tool within the Solaris Management Console, open the Volumes node. Choose Action⇒Create Volume, then follow the instructions in the wizard. For more information, see the online help.

• To concatenate existing stripes from the command line, use the following form of the metattach command:

  # metattach volume-name component-names

  volume-name

  Specifies the name of the volume to expand.

  component-names

  Specifies the names of the components that are used. If more than one component is used, separate each component with a space.

  See the metattach(1M) man page for more information.

Example 9–6 Creating a Concatenated Stripe by Attaching a Single Slice

# metattach d2 c1t2d0s2
d2: components are attached

This example illustrates how to attach a slice to an existing stripe, d2. The system confirms that the slice is attached.

Example 9–7 Creating a Concatenated Stripe by Adding Several Slices

# metattach d25 c1t2d0s2 c1t2d1s2 c1t2d3s2
d25: components are attached

This example takes an existing three-way stripe, d25, and concatenates another three-way stripe to it. Because no interlace value is given for the attached slices, the stripes inherit the interlace value configured for d25. The system verifies that the volume has been set up.

See Also

For a UFS file system, run the growfs command on the volume. See How to Expand a File System.

Some applications, such as a database, do not use a file system. An application such as a database uses the raw volume and must have its own way of recognizing the volume, or of growing the added space.

To prepare a newly created concatenated stripe for a file system, see Chapter 18, Creating UFS, TMPFS, and LOFS File Systems (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems.