This is the age of information and we are constantly finding new ways to collect data and use that data to improve how we work and how we live. Since the beginning of computing we have grown the amount of data we collect and store. From stacks of punch cards to arrays of solid-state drives, we have continually increased our storage capacity to accommodate the growth of data we want and need to store. We try to anticipate and plan for data growth the best we can, but sometimes it grows faster than anticipated.
With HC3 we want to make growing storage easier for you. We have made it easy to seamlessly scale out a cluster by adding a new node with more storage to the cluster storage pool. Yet no matter how much extra cluster storage pool capacity exists, that capacity is unavailable for use by a virtual disk that is restricted by a predefined logical size.
For example, if you defined a virtual disk with 500GB capacity during VM creation, that virtual disk remains limited to 500GB regardless of how much storage is added to the cluster storage pool. A virtual disk can be resized but that had required taking the VM offline or at least taking the disk offline and replacing it with a larger cloned disk.
One of the top wishlist items for our HC3 users has been the ability to expand the logical size of a virtual disk without taking its corresponding VM offline. We listened. With the release of HyperCore 8.5, that wish is now a reality.
We are happy to announce that without having to take the VM offline, and without having to clone the virtual disk and replace it, HC3 users can now have a virtual disk be expanded without any downtime. It only takes a few clicks as I’ll demonstrate in this short video demo.
HC3 Live Disk Expansion
As this is my first blog post, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Manish Ahuja and I am a Senior Product Manager here at Scale Computing. It is my pleasure to announce this new disk expansion feature. I have spoken to many of our HC3 users already but I hope to hear from all of you eventually on how you believe we can continue to improve HC3 in the future. Our HC3 user surveys (such as the survey going on now) are a great way to participate in helping guide future product development and deliver user-requested features like live disk expansion.
If you are interested in this live disk expansion feature now, please contact ScaleCare Support to get your HC3 system updated to HyperCore 8.5.
Feel free to reach out to me and our product team with your feedback and suggestions for future features and improvements on our Scale Legion Community or email us at pm@scalecomputing.com.