This entry presents my experience on expanding the logical disks of a Microsoft Exchange server.

Our Exchange server is a Microsoft Windows 2000 advanced box. The Exchange database files reside on 4 logical disks, let say I,K,M,N, coming from LUNs Compaq-HP HSG80 with fabric for redundancy via Fibre channel connections.

LUNs all are configured with RAID10 for redundancy and performance.

In this entry, I demonstrate the update of one logical disk I (I:), tasks of upgrading storage on other logical disks are the same.

I: is configured as a logical disk coming from a LUN with RAID10 on HSG80.

I: is name disk on Windows, under HSG80 its name is D10, and comes from stripe S10, that composes of M10, M11, M12, where M10, M11, M12 are there mirrors. M10, M11,M12 each composes of two SCSI Ultra320 10K 72GB. So size of S10 (D10) is 72×3GB, that is approximately 200GB under Windows.

Here are the configuration of the mirrors M10, M11, M12:

M10 <– (DISK10000, DISK20000)

M11 <– (DISK30000, DISK40000)

M12 <– (DISK50000, DISK60000)

The reason for this storage upgrade is by the time, the exchange server databases grow up and soon we run out of space on I, K, M, N. So we need to upgrade the size of I,K,M,N from 200GB to 400GB. The storage had been proceeded by following steps (tasks on Windows Exchange server will be mentioned short, not in details)

  • Back up all Exchange database files: this can be done by cold-backup,ie, copy all Exchange data files to other location either inside the Exchange server or on the external storage.
  • Stop Exchange services on Windows 2000 server.
  • Shut down the HSG80 fabric with commands:
SHUTDOWN OTHER_CONTROLLER
SHUTDOWN THIS_CONTROLLER
  • Replace 6 SCSI 72 disks of I by 12 SCSI 146GB disks.
  • Turn on SAN HSG80
  • Reconfigure D10, by deleting it, then recontruct D10 with new disks, all command are following
DELETE D10
DELETE S10
DELETE M10
DELETE M11
DELETE M12
INIT DISK10000
INIT DISK20000
INIT DISK30000
INIT DISK40000

…

INIT DISK60000
ADD MIRROR M10 DISK10000 DISK20000
INIT M10
ADD MIRROR M11 DISK20000 DISK40000
INIT M11
ADD MIRROR M12 DISK50000 DISK60000
INIT M12
ADD STRIPE S10 M10 M11 M12
INIT S10
ADD UNIT D10 S12

Now we have new D10 (new LUN ID) with size is 400GB.

We can do LUN masking from the SAN by using SET, like the follwing

SET D10 DISABLE_ACCESS_PATH=ALL ENABLE_ACCESS_PATH=(MSG1_1A1, MSG1_1A2, MSG1_2A1,MSG1_2A2)

where MSG1_1A1, …, MSG1_2A2 are access paths to the Exchange server.

We are done on SAN HSG80. The next steps are on Excahnge server:

Delete old logical disks because the new disks coming from new LUN IDs. Use Disk Management in Computer Management to rescan new logical disks. Set up, format them then copy back the exchange databases to the new disks. Restart Exchange services. That’s it.