Tools > File Systems > Stripe Group Actions
On the Stripe Group Actions page, you can manage and perform tasks on stripe groups. The stripe group management utilities allow you to perform various tasks related to stripe groups while the file system is active and in use by clients and their applications. You can add, delete, suspend, resume, offload, and defragment stripe groups.
You can also control the allocation state of a stripe group by enabling or disabling space allocation. When using thin-provisioned storage, the size of the LUNs in a stripe group may be increased. Finally, a stripe group can be deleted, which makes it vacant and available for re-use. This can be especially useful for file systems that have stripe groups that have been suspended or offloaded (the suspended or offloaded stripe group must be empty).
Note: Performing stripe group tasks requires that the file system be active on the primary node of an HA pair, if HA is configured. If the file system is active on the secondary, switch the file system to the primary.
Note: The offload, defrag, and delete tasks require that the global configuration variable metadataArchive is enabled. If this change needs to be made, the file system must be stopped and restarted for the change to take effect. Wait for the metadata archive database rebuild to complete by monitoring the status with the cvadmin
subcommand mdarchive status
.
Note: Depending on the size of the file system, certain tasks could take some time to complete. You may need to plan accordingly.

- On the Tools menu, click File Systems, and then click Stripe Group Actions. The Tools > File Systems > Stripe Group Actions page appears.
- Click a File System. The Stripe Group table displays the selected file system's current stripe groups and their respective properties (Stripe Group name, Total Size, Reserved Size, Free Size, and Utilization).
- (Optional) Click Refresh to manually refresh the data in the table.
- (Optional) Click Done to exit and navigate to the Home page.

- On the Tools menu, click File Systems, and then click Stripe Group Actions. The Tools > File Systems > Stripe Group Actions page appears.
- Click a File System.
-
Click Add Stripe Group.... A new page appears, where you can add the stripe group and configure its attributes, which are listed in the following table.
Parameter Description Stripe Group
Enter the name of the stripe group . Stripe Breadth
Set the stripe breadth value in bytes. If KiB ,MiB, GiB is appended to the value, the value is in kibibyte, mebibyte or gibibyte units. Affinities
Select the affinities to add to the stripe group. Exclusive
Specify whether the new stripe group affinities should be exclusive. Read Enabled
Specify whether reads should be enabled. Write Enabled
Specify whether writes should be enabled. Allocation Allowed
Specify whether allocations should be initially allowed. User Data Allocation Specify whether the stripe group allows user data allocations. Metadata Allocation Specify whether the stripe group allows metadata allocations. Skip trim/unmap All thin provisioned disks found are trimmed (unmapped) by default as part of adding a stripe group to this file system. Select the Skip trim/unmap check box to disable the trim operation for thin provisioned disks.
Note: The trim operation can take several minutes depending on the mappings present in the storage array. Contact Quantum Technical Support for additional assistance.
Disk
Select the disks to add to the stripe group. - Click Add to confirm your changes, or click Cancel Add to return to the previous page. If you click Add, a confirmation dialog box appears.
- Click Yes to confirm you want to add the stripe group, or click No to cancel the task and return to the previous page. If you click Yes, the stripe group is added to the selected file system and appears in the stripe group table.

This task allows you to delete a data stripe group.
WARNING: You can only delete a stripe group if it contains no user data. If you delete a stripe group that only contains user data, the disk LUNs are actually removed from the configuration and the stripe group is marked VACANT. For a shared metadata/user data stripe group, the stripe group is marked EXCLUSIVE and can only be used for metadata allocation. For file system clients prior to StorNext 5.4.0, unmount the file system prior to the delete, and then re-mount after.
- On the Tools menu, click File Systems, and then click Stripe Group Actions. The Tools > File Systems > Stripe Group Actions page appears.
- Click a File System.
- Click a Stripe Group.
- Click Delete. A confirmation dialog box appears.
- Click Yes to confirm you want to delete the stripe group, or click No to cancel the task and return to the previous page. If you click Yes, the selected stripe group is removed from the file system stripe group table.

This task allows you to suspend any new space allocations to a given data stripe group. While writes will be allocated on other data stripe groups, reads will continue on the selected stripe group. The reported in-use space reflects the loss of allocatable blocks from the selected stripe group.
- On the Tools menu, click File Systems, and then click Stripe Group Actions. The Tools > File Systems > Stripe Group Actions page appears.
- Click a File System.
- Click a Stripe Group.
- Click Suspend. A confirmation dialog box appears.
- Click Yes to confirm you want to suspend the stripe group, or click No to cancel the task and return to the previous page. If you click Yes, the selected stripe group is suspended.

This task allows you to resume new space allocations on a data stripe group. Writes will now be allocated on the selected group. The in-use percentage of space will now be decreased as blocks are made available for allocation.
- On the Tools menu, click File Systems, and then click Stripe Group Actions. The Tools > File Systems > Stripe Group Actions page appears.
- Click a File System.
- Click a Stripe Group that has been suspended.
- Click Resume. A confirmation dialog box appears.
- Click Yes to confirm you want to resume the stripe group, or click No to cancel the task and return to the previous page. If you click Yes, the selected stripe group is resumed.

This task allows you to move data off of one data stripe group onto another stripe group.
Note: If your system is running a StorNext 5.3.2 (or earlier) client, then you must unmount all macOS clients and any StorNext clients (that are running StorNext 5.3.2 [or earlier]) from the file system prior to using the Vacate on move option. StorNext 5.3.2 (or earlier) clients do not support the removal of a stripe group from a mounted file system. If you have macOS clients, then you should do the following without the Vacate on move option, and then run the procedure with the Vacate on move option after you unmount all clients.
- On the Tools menu, click File Systems, and then click Stripe Group Actions. The Tools > File Systems > Stripe Group Actions page appears.
- Click a File System.
- Select a Stripe Group.
- Click Offload.... A new page appears.
- Select the Target Stripe Group from the menu.
- (Optional) Click Vacate on move to vacate the stripe group after data is moved, and to allow reads/writes to continue from a different stripe group in a file system.
- If the offloaded stripe group is a shared metadata/user data stripe group, it is made EXCLUSIVE for metadata allocations only.
- If the stripe group is a shared journal/user data stripe group, it is made EXCLUSIVE for journal only.
- If the stripe group is only used for user data, the disk LUNs are removed from the configuration and the stripe group is marked VACANT.
- A stripe group that is marked as DOWN may also be vacated using this task. A vacant stripe group can be re-used using the
sgadd
command.
- Click Offload to perform the offload operation, or click Cancel Offload to cancel and return to the previous page. If you click Offload, a confirmation dialog box appears.
- Click Yes to confirm you want to offload the stripe group, or click No to cancel the task and return to the previous page. If you click Yes, the selected stripe group is offloaded.

This task allows you to reduce the amount of free space fragmentation in a stripe group through a process called defragmentation. For each file that contains extents on the stripe group, the list of all extents for that file (which may be scattered in different data areas) is retrieved from the metadata archive database. These extents are then re-allocated so that data is contiguous across all stripe groups or on the same stripe group.
Defragmentation creates fewer larger blocks of free space and often results in fewer larger data extents on the files it operates on. This generally results in better performance for the file system. For additional information, see the snfsdefrag(1)
command in the Man Pages Reference Guide.
Note: The snfsdefrag(1)
command defragments files instead of stripe groups.
Also see the cvfsck(8)
command in the Man Pages Reference Guide for information regarding the current state of free space fragmentation in a stripe group.
Important Considerations
When re-allocating space, the new blocks are, by default, allocated at the end of a stripe group.
- This behavior can be changed to use the allocator’s default algorithms for extent placement.
- This may be at the start of the stripe group but can be influenced by other factors such as best fit or allocation session reservation. If the only available space is at the end of the stripe group, the allocator will place the new extents here.
- The placement of file extents affects the performance of writes and reads on traditional spinning disks. Because the speed of the disk is greater on the outside tracks, writes and reads to and from blocks allocated here will outperform writes and reads to and from blocks on the innermost tracks.
- In some cases, it may be useful to defragment to free up higher-performance blocks taken by older files and leave the new free space available for newly created files.
- There is no performance difference when a Solid State Device (SSD) is used to hold file data on a stripe group.
- On the Tools menu, click File Systems, and then click Stripe Group Actions. The Tools > File Systems > Stripe Group Actions page appears.
- Click a File System.
- Select a Stripe Group.
- Click Defrag.... A new page appears.
- In the Block Selection field, click one of the following options:
- Move 50% of used blocks: This option moves half of the used blocks, which is the default.
- Move all used blocks: This option moves all of the used blocks.
- Custom: This option allows you to enter a specific block count. In the Blocks to move field, specify the number of blocks to move.
-
(Optional) For the Allocate at the end option, specify if new allocations should be made at the end of the stripe group. The default is that new allocations are made at the end of the stripe group.
- (Optional) For the Keep allocations option, specify if you want to keep the allocations on the same stripe group.
- (Optional) For the Allocate smallest possible pieces option, specify if you want to allocate the smallest possible pieces.
- Click Defrag to perform the task, or click Cancel Defrag to cancel the task and return to the previous page. If you click Defrag, a confirmation dialog box appears.
- Click Yes to confirm you want to offload the stripe group, or click No to cancel the task and return to the previous page. If you click Yes, the selected stripe group is defragmented.