Migrate Data

Migrating file system data refers to moving data files from a file system’s source stripe group to other stripe groups on the same file system, and then freeing the source stripe group so it can be removed from the file system.

To access the Migrate Data page on the GUI, on the Tools menu, click File Systems, and then click Migrate Data (refer to Figure 1).

Figure 1: Migrate Data page

You can migrate User Data stripe groups or Metadata/Journal Data stripe groups.

When migrating User Data stripe groups, select the source stripe groups only, not the destination stripe groups. Files will be moved randomly to new stripe groups while respecting their affinity rules (if any). When migrating, make sure the source stripe group is completely empty when the process completes, because source files that are updated while the file system is running may be left behind, requiring a second iteration of the migration.

The time it takes to complete the migration process depends on the amount of data being moved between source file system and destination stripe groups. When moving a data stripe group, the file system continues to run during the move. StorNext does not block any new read/write requests, or block updates to existing files on the source file system. All operations (including metadata operations) are handled normally, but no new writes are allowed to the source stripe group, which will be marked read-only.

When migrating Metadata/Journal Data stripe groups, select both source stripe group and destination stripe group.

Note: On large disks, the migration process may take some time since all of the blocks on the disks are copied, regardless of the amount of data on the disks.

Note: When migrating a metadata stripe group to new disks, the overall metadata size will remain the same despite the size of the target disks. In order to add more metadata capacity, add new metadata stripe groups (refer to Adding a Stripe Group Without Moving).