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Increasing the size of a FlexGroup volume

You can increase the size of a FlexGroup volume either by adding more capacity to the existing constituents of the FlexGroup volume or by expanding the FlexGroup volume with new constituents.

Before you begin

Sufficient space must be available in the aggregates.

About this task

If you want to add more space, you can increase the collective size of the FlexGroup volume. Increasing the size of a FlexGroup volume resizes the existing constituents of the FlexGroup volume.

If you want to improve performance, you can expand the FlexGroup volume. You might want to expand a FlexGroup volume and add new constituents in the following situations:

  • New nodes have been added to the cluster.

  • New aggregates have been created on the existing nodes.

  • The existing constituents of the FlexGroup volume have reached the maximum FlexVol size for the hardware, and therefore the FlexGroup volume cannot be resized.

Starting with ONTAP 9.5, you can expand FlexGroup volumes that are in a SnapMirror relationship.

Increase the size of the FlexGroup volume by increasing the capacity or performance of the FlexGroup volume, as required:
If you want to increase the...Then do this...
Capacity of the FlexGroup volumeResize the constituents of the FlexGroup volume: volume modify -vserver vserver_name -volume fg_name -size new_size
Performance to the FlexGroup volumeExpand the FlexGroup volume by adding new constituents: volume expand -vserver vserver_name -volume fg_name -aggr-list aggregate name,... [-aggr-list-multiplier constituents_per_aggr]

The default value of the -aggr-list-multiplier parameter is 1.

To expand a FlexGroup volume for FabricPool in ONTAP 9.5, any new aggregates used must be FabricPool.

Whenever possible, you should increase the capacity of a FlexGroup volume. If you must expand a FlexGroup volume, you should add constituents in the same multiples as the constituents of the existing FlexGroup volume to ensure consistent performance. For example, if the existing FlexGroup volume has 16 constituents with eight constituents per node, you can expand the existing FlexGroup volume by 8 or 16 constituents.

Examples​

Example of increasing the capacity of the existing constituents

The following example shows how to add 20 TB space to a FlexGroup volume volX:

cluster1::> volume modify -vserver svm1 -volume volX -size +20TB

If the FlexGroup volume has 16 constituents, the space of each constituent is increased by 1.25 TB.

Example of improving performance by adding new constituents

The following example shows how to add two more constituents to the FlexGroup volume volX:

cluster1::> volume expand -vserver vs1 -volume volX -aggr-list aggr1,aggr2

The size of the new constituents is the same as that of the existing constituents.