Increasing netapp lun size

[Guv]

we have esxi4. 1 hosts connected to netapp filer via FC.  On the netapp we have luns on volumes, and these luns on esx are mapped as vmfs datastores on ESX.  One of the luns is running out of space, but the volume it is on has space, so i was going to increase the size of the LUN, which you can do on the fly on netapp, but on esx, would it automatically pick up the new lun size.  I dont want to add any extents, i just want the current lun to increase in size automatically.

Any advise.

[john23]

Storage end if you increase the size , On esx side

vmfs datastore-> properties->increase (here it will show the lun which you have increased).

It will not go as extend.

[patrickds]

no problem, as long as the datastore has not reached the maximum extent size of 2TB.

The datastore will not grow automatically, you'll have to make it grow to use the additional space on the LUN.

After extending the LUN, do a rescan of the storage controller to make ESX pick up the change.

If the free space you want to add is immediately adjacent to the current partition (this should be the case, as you're expanding an existing LUN), you can choose to grow the datastore instead of adding an extent, up to the maximum of 2TB-512B of course.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1752

page 113 of the vSphere configuration guide:

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_esx_server_config.pdf

[Guv]

I can increase the lun via netapp, but i see in the vcentre we have a netapp plugin, so when i right click the datatstore and i see in the menu, a netapp option which gives option provision and then resize.  I assume you choose the resize command to increase the lun size.

Is this correct, anyone used the netapp plugin in vmware before

[harrygunter]

Yes you can resize through the NetApp plugin, as long as the user that's configured to connect to the filers has the correct permissions to do so.

With VMFS you can only increase the size, with NFS you can also decrease.

Mark

[Guv]

with this resize command, is it the same as increasing the lun on the netapp, or do you have to increase the lun size on the filer first and then increase via this plugin.

When i open the plugin , it does the current size is 400gb, but the max size is 600gb, so does that mean i can already increase the size of the datastore.

[harrygunter]

The plugin will resize the lun / datastore, unless the volume that it is in is full. So i would say that you have 200gb of free space left on the volume where the lun / datastore sits.

You can check this my looking at the storage details through the plugin.