From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 27 19:05:44 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7503816A4CE for ; Tue, 27 Apr 2004 19:05:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pooker.samsco.org (pooker.samsco.org [168.103.85.57]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0C79643D2D for ; Tue, 27 Apr 2004 19:05:44 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from scottl@freebsd.org) Received: from freebsd.org (g4.samsco.home [192.168.0.12]) by pooker.samsco.org (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i3S298u6078207; Tue, 27 Apr 2004 20:09:08 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from scottl@freebsd.org) Message-ID: <408F1142.9070703@freebsd.org> Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 20:04:50 -0600 From: Scott Long User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7a) Gecko/20040214 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Don Bowman References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 required=3.8 tests=none autolearn=no version=2.63 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on pooker.samsco.org cc: "'current@freebsd.org'" Subject: Re: question about growfs, aac raid, enlarging by adding disks X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 02:05:44 -0000 Don Bowman wrote: > this is perhaps a naive question, but i > couldn't find the answer. > > if i have e.g. a 3-disk raid5 using aac, > and i add another disk, can i increase the > size of the logical disk using the aac bios > (or ideally aacli), and then use growfs to > increase the size of the filesystem? Can > this be done if i obey some restrictions, > e.g. resize the last filesystem on the partition? > > I would like to boot from the array, have swap > on it, and have a large partition that uses > the remainder of the space. I'm assuming i would > lay it out so that it goes root first, then > swap, then the large filesystem. > > The adaptec raid bios seems to indicate i can > grow by adding a drive, but only under windows. > The manual for it has no mention of this. The > datasheet also indicates i can increase size > 'on the fly'. > aaccli will let you increase the size of the container. If you are using Windows, then there is magic that will resize the partition table and the NTFS and/or FAT filesystems. I can't remember if the magic is in the driver, aaccli, or firmware, but it definitely only applies to FAT and NTFS _filesystems_. Growing the container is done in the firmware and is independent of the filesystems, MBR/slice table, etc. > Does vinum enter into this? ccd? Since the raid > is done in hardware i wouldn't think so. > neither vinum nor ccd apply here. A true LVM might be nice, but vinum doesn't provide the kind of LVM services that would help here. > It would appear that i might be able to add > a disk, convince the raid to increase in size > somehow, rerun fdisk to increase the size of > my partition, rerun bsdlabel to increase the > size of my slice, and then run growfs. > I agree with this. Of course, nothing beats a good backup first =-) Let me know if you need help with the aaccli magic. > this is all on 5.2. > > Anybody else ever done this? > Years ago I tried it and was somewhat successfull, but it was more of a proof of concept than anything else. > --don Scott