Adding new disks to existing Global Data Platform nodes

If storage gets added at the hardware level, then the new storage information is available on the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System user interface. You can add storage to the cluster by adding additional disks to the storage nodes in the cluster. Each storage node must have the same number of disks, so make sure to add an equal number of disks to each node in the cluster.

Before you begin

Ensure that the following conditions are met:
  • No node is in maintenance mode.
  • Nodes do not get rebooted during disk upsize.
  • Do not initiate an upgrade of OpenShift®, IBM Storage Fusion HCI System, or node firmware until the new storage addition is complete.
  • Number of disks is the same for all servers in the storage cluster.

    If you want disk upsize, then add same number of disks to all storage nodes available in the cluster. For example, a cluster has a base minimum of six storage nodes, then at least 6*2=12 disks with two disks each must be added. For nodes, if the cluster has six storage nodes with two disks each, you can add one more node with two disks. Now, your storage cluster has seven storage nodes with two disks each.

  • Storage nodes must have an even number of disks.
  • During installation or upgrade, the pod may get stuck in container creating state and the crash loop might fail with attach volume. For such error scenarios, do the following workaround steps:
    1. Unschedule the node from which you were trying to attach volume.
    2. Delete the pod that got stuck in container creating state.
    3. Run upsize again.
  • For hardware configuration of compute-storage or compute-only nodes, see Hardware overview of a single rack.

About this task

Note: If you are on a Metro-DR setup, then ensure that both sites have the same storage capacity. If you upsize storage disks on one site, ensure that you upsize the storage capacity on the second site at the earliest. If you do operations on the local and remote cluster during this mismatch, IBM is not responsible for any data loss or inconsistencies. If you face any disk failures, ensure that you rectify them and bring both site 1 and site 2 at the same level at the earliest.

If you face any issues during disk upsize, see Global Data Platform service issues.

Procedure

  1. In the IBM Storage Fusion menu, go to Global Data Platform depending on your storage type.
  2. Click Actions > Add disk.
    A window opens with details of the newly added storage at the hardware level.

    If you are not able to see additional disks even after 1 hour, contact IBM Support.

  3. Go through the storage details and click Add.
    Note: It is a best practice to add a bunch of storage nodes at a time and not one-by-one.
    The following message is displayed:
    Request accepted successfully

    All new disks on all nodes get added automatically and disk selection is not required.

  4. To verify, go to the node details page and check the Disks tab. For more information about the procedure, see Node details.