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The PowerMax supports dynamic, online expansion of all SRDF pairs except SRDF/Metro until PowerMaxOS release 5978.444.444 when online SRDF/Metro expansion is offered.
Note: SRDF/Metro Smart DR does not support online expansion of devices.
The following section presents the steps to dynamically expand an SRDF device.
The environment for this example consists of a single 200 GB device replicating synchronously from the PowerMax (SID 1879) to the PowerMax (SID 1883) in SRDF group 16. The storage group name on both arrays is expand_ds_sg as seen in Figure 37.
On the device, the EXPAND_DS datastore is created, with one active VM shown in Figure 38. On the R2 side, the device is masked to the DR vCenter in Figure 39.
The expansion on the array side is completed easily using Unisphere for PowerMax. It only requires a single wizard, which is run from either array. It can be done at the volume level, or in this example at the storage group level. In the first step, highlight the storage group to expand and select Modify as shown in Figure 40.
In the Modify Storage Group screen, enter in a new Volume Capacity for the R1 device and select Run Now from the drop-down menu. If the device is part of an SRDF relationship, the user is immediately presented with a screen (step 4) asking for the remote RDF group.
Use the drop-down box and select the available group and press “Apply.” These steps are shown in Figure 41.
Expand the task details while the process runs, where Unisphere for PowerMax reports both the R1 and R2 are now expanded in Figure 42.
Now rescan both the production and DR vCenters, to recognize the new device size. The new side is recognized, as shown here on the R2 side in Figure 43.
On the R1 side, the datastore can now be expanded online. The process is the same as explained above in Growing VMFS in VMware vSphere. It is not covered again.