Additional Hard Disks for Production Server

[Former Member]

Hello everyone!

I am just wondering if anyone can advice me on this matter.

Our production server is running out storage space, so we are planning to install new hard disks. According to my technical guy, right now, the hard drive installed are not dynamic, so can only support up to 4 partitions. If we are to install new hard disks, we have to switch it to dynamic.

I am not sure what is dynamic hard drive (?), or what effects will it have on SAP system performance if we are to switch it. I am puzzled why we have to switch to dynamic in the first place.

Please help.

Thank you

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Kassim,

Probably your hardware team talks about dynamic disk which supports an unlimited number (up to 2000) of volumes.

Windows 2000 and later version has introduced a new concept called dynamic disk along with the basic disk. Dynamic disks support the following disk configurations:

Simple volumes

Spanned volumes

Mirrored volumes

Striped volumes

RAID-5 volumes

The main reason is to take advantage of additional features that include:

1. Disk and volume management tasks can be performed without having to restart the computer

afterwards.

2. Volumes that span multiple disks can be created. These are referred to as spanned volumes.

3. A simple or spanned volume can be extended without losing any data.

4. Dynamic disks support an unlimited number (up to 2000) of volumes.

5. Dynamic disks do not use a Master Boot Record (MBR). The disk layout information is stored on the

last 1 MB of the disk.

To know more about dynamic disk please refer the below links.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309044

http://www.petri.co.il/difference_between_basic_and_dynamic_disks_in_windows_xp_2000_2003.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816307

Rgds,

SK

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Will switching the basic HD to dynamic HD effect the running of SAP? We are going to extend the storage space for Production Server, that is why I am very concern about this.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

No there is not at all any performance effect on SAP.

Rgds,

SK

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

So, in other word, we can stop SAP, install the HD, or switch the HD setting, whichever the technician decided to do first, and once the HD is safely installed, we can just re-start SAP, and it will run as usual, like nothing happened?

Is the switching operation can be done by my usual technician, or do I need to get someone from SAP to do it for me?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

If you have separate OS team/Storage technician he can do that, you don't need to involve anybody from SAP. These are very common tasks in windows environment.

Rgds,

SK