question about growfs, aac raid, enlarging by adding disks

[Don Bowman]

From: Scott Long [mailto:scottl at freebsd.org]
> Don Bowman wrote:
> 
> > this is perhaps a naive question, but i
> > couldn't find the answer.
> > 
> > if i have e.g. a 3-disk raid5 using aac,
> > and i add another disk, can i increase the
> > size of the logical disk using the aac bios
> > (or ideally aacli), and then use growfs to
> > increase the size of the filesystem? Can
> > this be done if i obey some restrictions,
> > e.g. resize the last filesystem on the partition?
> > 
> > I would like to boot from the array, have swap
> > on it, and have a large partition that uses
> > the remainder of the space. I'm assuming i would
> > lay it out so that it goes root first, then
> > swap, then the large filesystem.
> > 
> > The adaptec raid bios seems to indicate i can
> > grow by adding a drive, but only under windows.
> > The manual for it has no mention of this. The
> > datasheet also indicates i can increase size
> > 'on the fly'.
> > 
> 
> aaccli will let you increase the size of the container.
> If you are using Windows, then there is magic that will
> resize the partition table and the NTFS and/or FAT
> filesystems.  I can't remember if the magic is in the
> driver, aaccli, or firmware, but it definitely only
> applies to FAT and NTFS _filesystems_.  Growing the
> container is done in the firmware and is independent
> of the filesystems, MBR/slice table, etc.

The 'container extend volume' command doesn't exist
in aaccli, the manual indicates its only for windows.

There is 'container reconfigure', i suppose that might be
the right command?

However, when i try it, i get an error that there is not
enough space on the specified device, as below.

AAC0> container list
Executing: container list
Num          Total  Oth Stripe          Scsi   Partition
Label Type   Size   Ctr Size   Usage   C:ID:L Offset:Size
----- ------ ------ --- ------ ------- ------ -------------
 0    Volume  410GB            Open    0:00:0 64.0KB: 136GB 
 /dev/aacd0           v                0:02:0 64.0KB: 136GB 
                                       0:03:0 64.0KB: 136GB 

AAC0> disk list          
Executing: disk list

C:ID:L  Device Type     Blocks    Bytes/Block Usage            Shared Rate
------  --------------  --------- ----------- ---------------- ------ ----
0:00:0   Disk            286749610 512         Initialized      NO     320 
0:02:0   Disk            286749610 512         Initialized      NO     320 
0:03:0   Disk            286749610 512         Initialized      NO     320 
0:04:0   Disk            286749610 512         Initialized      NO     320 

AAC0> container reconfigure 0 4
Executing: container reconfigure 0 (ID=4)
Command Error: <The specified operation failed because there was not enough
space on the specified device.>

AAC0>