Adding physical volumes to the storage pool

You can add physical volumes to the storage pool by using the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) command-line interface.

Prerequisites

Before you start, ensure that there are physical volumes capable of being added to the storage pool. To display a list of physical volumes for which the usage cannot be determined, enter the lspv -free or lspv -capable commands immediately before changing the storage provisioning. Another VIOS logical partition might have taken a physical volume. For example, entering the lspv -free command returns results similar to the following:

NAME      PVID                    SIZE (megabytes)
-----------------------------------------------------
hdisk0    none                     17408
hdisk3    000d4451605a0d99         20482
hdisk4    none                     10250
hdisk6    none                     20490
hdisk8    none                     20500

List the physical volumes that are capable of being included in the storage pool. For example, entering the lspv -clustername clusterA -capable command returns results similar to the following:

PV NAME                  SIZE (MB)      PVUDID
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
hdisk0                   17408          200B75CXHW1025F07210790003IBMfcp
hdisk3                   20482          200B75CXHW1031007210790003IBMfcp
hdisk4                   10250          200B75CXHW1031107210790003IBMfcp
hdisk6                   20490          200B75CXHW1031307210790003IBMfcp
hdisk8                   20500          200B75CXHW1031A07210790003IBMfcp

To determine if a physical volume is in use, run the prepdev command. If the physical volume is in use as a cluster repository disk or as a storage pool disk, you will receive an error message. For example, by entering prepdev -dev hdisk5, you can determine if the hdisk5 physical volume is in use. Output similar to the following is displayed:

WARNING!
The VIOS has detected that this physical volume is currently in use. Data will be
lost and cannot be undone when destructive actions are taken. These actions should
only be done after confirming that the current physical volume usage and data are
no longer needed.
The VIOS could not determine the current usage of this device.

If the physical volume is in use as a cluster repository disk or as a storage pool disk, you can use the cleandisk command to make the physical volume available.

Note: Ensure that the physical volume is no longer required, because running the cleandisk command results in loss of data on the physical volume.

To remove a cluster repository disk signature from the hdisk4 physical volume, enter the following command:
```
cleandisk -r hdisk4
```
To remove a storage pool disk signature from the hdisk4 physical volume, enter the following command:
```
cleandisk -s hdisk4
```

To add one or more physical volumes to a storage pool, complete the following steps:

Add physical volumes to the storage pool by using the chsp command. For example,
```
chsp -add -clustername clusterA -sp poolA hdisk4 hdisk8
```
In this example, the hdisk4 and hdisk8 physical volumes are added to the storage pool.

To display the list of physical volumes in the storage pool, use the lspv command. For example, entering the lspv -clustername clusterA -sp poolA command returns results similar to the following:

PV NAME                  SIZE (MB)      PVUDID   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
hdisk4                   20485          200B75CXHW1031207210790003IBMfcp
hdisk5                   20495          200B75CXHW1031907210790003IBMfcp
hdisk6                   10250          200B75CXHW1031107210790003IBMfcp
hdisk8                   20500          200B75CXHW1031A07210790003IBMfcp

To display the list of the remaining free physical volumes that can be included in the cluster, use the lspv command. For example, entering the lspv -clustername clusterA -capable command returns results similar to the following:

PV NAME                  SIZE (MB)      PVUDID
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
hdisk0                   17408          200B75CXHW1025F07210790003IBMfcp
hdisk3                   20482          200B75CXHW1031007210790003IBMfcp
hdisk6                   20490          200B75CXHW1031307210790003IBMfcp
hdisk9                   20505          200B75CXHW1031A07210790003IBMfcp

To display the information about the shared storage pool, such as pool size, available free space, and how overcommitted the shared storage pool is, use the lssp command. For example, entering the lssp -clustername ClusterA command returns results similar to the following:
```
POOL_NAME:       poolA
POOL_SIZE:       71730
FREE_SPACE:      4096
TOTAL_LU_SIZE:   80480
OVERCOMMIT_SIZE: 8750
TOTAL_LUS:       20
POOL_TYPE:       CLPOOL
POOL_ID:         FFFFFFFFAC10800E000000004F43B5DA 
```
To remove a physical volume (PV) from a shared storage pool (SSP), use the pv command. For more information, see the pv Command.

Last updated: Thu, October 15, 2020