Home > Storage > Unity XT > Storage Admin > Dell Unity Dynamic Pools > Expanding a dynamic pool
Expanding a pool is the process of adding additional drives to a tier or additional tiers, depending on the system model, to an existing pool within the system to increase its capacity. Like a traditional pool, a dynamic pool can be expanded at any time up to the system limits through Unisphere, Unisphere CLI, or REST API. To expand a pool in Unisphere, navigate to the Pools page by selecting Pools under the Storage header in the left pane of Unisphere, select the pool to expand, and select Expand Pool.
Figure 34 shows an example of the Pools page with the Expand Pool option in the top-left side of the screen.
Figure 34 Unisphere > Pools page
The first step within the Expand Pool wizard is the Storage Tiers step. An example of this screen for a hybrid system is shown in Figure 35. Since this is a hybrid storage system, multiple Tier options are available. Once a tier is selected to expand the pool, the existing RAID type for the tier within the pool is shown. The RAID type and Hot Spare Capacity cannot be customized on an existing tier because they can only be set at pool creation or when the tier is added to the pool. Within a hybrid system, if an additional tier is being added to the pool the RAID type and Hot Spare Capacity values can be set for the new tier.
Figure 35 Expand Pool wizard > Storage Tiers
The next step in the Expand Pool wizard is the Drives step. All drives available within the system for the expansion are shown, along with the number of free drives for each drive size and type. Depending on the number of drives selected, Totals is updated with the number of drives and capacity that are added to the pool. In Figure 36, 6 x 1.2 TB SAS drives and 6 x 2.0 TB NL SAS drives are added to the pool.
Figure 36 Expand Pool wizard > Drives step
The Summary step outlines the changes that will be made to the pool. Under Tiers/Drive to Add to This Pool, information is provided about the expansion. This information includes the existing Tier to be expanded, the RAID Configuration, the number of Drives being added, and the Additional Usable Capacity (TB) being added to the pool. If any changes need to be made, select the Back button. Otherwise, select Finish.
Figure 37 Expand Pool wizard > Summary
The last step within the Expand Pool wizard is the Results step. Once the expansion is started, a background job is started and the wizard can be closed. Not until the job completes is the space available within the pool. The length the expansion process takes directly depends on the number of drives being added to the pool. In Figure 38, the expansion process is allowed to finish before the window is closed.
Figure 38 Expand Pool wizard > Results