Adding Free Space in NBU Appliance

[Nayabsk]

Hi All,

After adding a new disk shelf to a appliance and assigning the  disks to the appliance , Now i have two pools/volumes one is CATALOG and another is DATA if i add disks to my appliance will my disks automatically goes to a volume/pool or i can have control over it Because i want to add all my disks to my DATA pool and also what is Meta Disk i have read if i add 7 disks 1 disk will be metadisk and only 6 will be actual usable ? 

Thanks,

Nayab

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hello,

Please login into the CLISH and then go to mange > storage > show

Post that output here.

[Nayabsk]

I dont have access to appliance , I am going to add a new disk shelf for my client and wanted to know how the space is managed after assigning new disks.........

[maurijo]

Appliances have RAID volumes, simply adding a disk won't give you free space.

The meta disk has to do with the way the RAID works.

Some TA can probably explain this in more detail

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Ok I've posted a sample output below.

Depending on your configuration (Master/Media) (Advanced Disk Pool / Dedupe Pool) you'll have the following partitions (volumes) available.

AdvancedDisk
Configuration
MSDP

Once you add the new tray you'll get an extra disk (highlighted below)

You can then decide which partitions to increase.

- [Info] Performing sanity check on disks and partitions... (5 mins approx)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disk ID                    | Type             | Total       | Unallocated | Status
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5E000000000000000000000000 | Operating System |   930.39 GB |        -    | n/a
74B2C580001879FF490EC7C49A | Base             |   4.5429 TB |        0 GB | In Use
B0048640A01879FF4C0FD4236E | Expansion        |   35.470 TB |   268.98 GB | In Use
B0048640A0FF00003B03B32C62 | Expansion        |   35.470 TB |        0 GB | In Use
 
74B2C580001879FF490EC7C49A (Base)
--------------------------------------
Catalog      :      1 GB
MSDP         : 4.5419 TB
 
B0048640A01879FF4C0FD4236E (Expansion)
--------------------------------------
AdvancedDisk :    200 GB
Configuration:     25 GB
MSDP         : 34.987 TB
 
B0048640A0FF00003B03B32C62 (Expansion)
--------------------------------------
MSDP         : 35.470 TB
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Partition     | Total       | Available   | Used        | %Used | Status
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
AdvancedDisk  |      200 GB |   198.18 GB |   1.8178 GB |     1 | Optimal
Configuration |       25 GB |   24.736 GB |   270.00 MB |     2 | Optimal
MSDP          |       75 TB |   25.391 TB |   49.608 TB |    67 | Optimal
Unallocated   |   268.98 GB |        -    |        -    |    -  | -

[chashock]

You don't want to think of this in terms of typical storage maangement.  You aren't going to "add disks" to a pool.  You've already added the disks, and the layout of the volumes is dictated by the appliance.

Once you've added the shelf you simply determine which partition you want to add capacity to and do so.  You don't have to add specific disks or create the layout to add the capacity.  If you want it all to go to MSDP, you simply add the new space to the MSDP partition.

[Mouse]

You can only expand space available on the appliance by buying an extra shelf (with disks) from Symantec. Then you need to cable it in and attach additional unit in CLISH. Then you can expand the pool.

It's not a generic array where you can add a disk and rebuild RAID to use the additional space.

[Nayabsk]

How about the META DATA disk works , Say if i have 7 Disks in my disk shelf is this by default one disk has to be for META DATA every time i add in a shelf ?  Or i can have control over this ? What all the information stored on the META DISK ? Is the META DISK cannot be universal like i can have one DISK for my META DATA for whole appliance or need to have a DISK to store META DATA for each shelf ? 

Also i want to know what is the recommened free space i need to have in CATALOG VOLUME or PARTITION as i am planning to add all my disks to my DATA or MSDP VOLUME if the catalog is more occupied than the recommended free space i may add some space to my CATALOG VOLUME and rest to my DATA or MSDP 

[RiaanBadenhorst]

You don't have control about the RAID level in this box, so forget about METADATA. You get 36 TB, you can devide that between the pools of catalog, advanced or dedupe disk as you please. That is ALL that you've got control over.

Catalog should be big enough to house your catalog. The catalog size is determined by the amount of files you backup and how long your retention periods are. If you need information on catalog sizing look at this guide http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC7449

[chashock]

This is an appliance.  You don't control things at the disk, RAID, or LUN level, anymore than you control the number of heating wires in your toaster or the amount of coolant your refrigerator holds.  The appliance frees you from that worry and need to design for metadata.  You design for how much capacity you need and worry about your recovery requirements not the bits and bytes of the individual components in the system.  

As Riaan notes, you need to size for the catalog based on your retention, number of daily jobs, etc., if this is a master/media device.  

[Nayabsk]

Thanks for all valuable comments..........

Ok Why i was speaking about META DATA DISK is because i have seen from the NBU Appliance Hardware Installation Guide. Please find the screen shot below.

 

[andrew_mcc]

That is from the NetBackup 5330 Appliance Hardware Installation Guide which has an extra RAID volume for its MSDP catalog. My guess is you have a 5230 or possibly 5220 which does not have this extra volume; they also have their own Hardware Installation Guides which are Appliance software version specific. Andrew

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Well done on actually reading the guide. The 5330 has not been released in my region so can't comment on that yet. But I'm sure you'll still not have to worry about the lower level raid operations and you'll be able to choose how much size to allocate to each pool function.

[chashock]

The comments made thus far still apply to the 5330.  You don't allocate specific disks for the metabase.  As the manual says, the disks will be displayed, you don't configure them or need to account for them.  The separation of the meta component is simply for resiliency and recovery, not something you need to worry about or design for.  It's always been there ins ome form or fashion, but with 7.6.1 there are some new functions that work best if it is on its own volume.