extend filesystem

[tmart]

Could you provide a means to simply extend an existing filesystem? I do realize that it's up to the underlying filesystem as to whether or not tools exist to incorporate that new space, but I would think that you should be able to simply add new logical blocks to the end of the volume. Resizing a large volume could otherwise be impossible if there is not enough room for the copy, but would certainly take a very long time.

Maybe either "vol extend [--prefill]" or "vol resize [--extend] [--prefill]" ?

Perhaps you could do this in a way that would allow extending the volume while the component assigned the volume is still running. Of course most filesystems would need to be unmounted in order to recognize the new space; hwoever, when using raw volumes, the space could then be immediately available once the mapping to the newly allocated blocks has been completed?

[stephen]

I have opened a software change request for this: SCR #3034

It seems likely, though, that the volume will have to be unmounted/not-in-use. Off hand I do not know all of the filesystems which support this -- zfs, raw, reiserfs -- what else?

[tmart]

Yes, most filesystems would need to be unmounted/resized/remounted before the space will be available; however, that's still better than copying; however, some might support the physical resizing while the device is still mounted (but this might be dangerous). This would be an advantage to minimize the downtime associated with resizing large volumes.

Think large volumes (10GB-500GB). In some cases, copying might not even be an option if there isn't room on the grid/server for both to exist simultaneously.

BTW ext3 (via resizee2fs) also supports resizing.