How to expand SCCM drive (volume) spaces without impacting prod?

[Eaven HUANG]

Dear Experts,  

I've been googling around trying to expand one of our SCCM drives where all content library resides. This has caused issues with our DP and reporting service point and failed for CB update prerequisite check.  

I was advised to expand the drive by changing it from BASIC to DYNAMIC but I'm not sure what is the side effect and any risks of destroying our prod server. I'm also looking for third-party tools like EaseUS but seems they are also offering to change the disk to dynamic:(  

I tried to clean up the content library but it showed me "Approximately 0 bytes would have been freed if this tool was run in delete mode."  I was also thinking about initiating a new drive, change it next to G drive, deleting the volume and expand F drive to use the space but that seems very risky in production... 

This is our primary site and we have only one Win 2019 server hosting everything including the SQL server. I might also need to expand other drives later but I'm totally lost now:(  

Any help would be really appreciated.  Thanks a lot for your assistance in advance.

[anyweb]

hi there, is this server virtual or real hardware ?

[Eaven HUANG]

On 1/28/2024 at 5:14 AM, anyweb said:

hi there, is this server virtual or real hardware ?

Dear Expert,

 

This is a VM hosted on ESXI and the Disk 2 was added from v-center. If I wanted to extend the F drive, then I have to convert it to DYNANIC, I'm not sure if that's safe or any service impact, as this is our prod server.

[anyweb]

normally with Virtual Machines you need to first remove any snapshots on that vm, power down the vm and then increase the size of the disk in question,after powering on the vm, you'll see the new expanded space on the disk in disk administration and you can expand the disk into the remaining space

it would be a good idea to have a backup just in case, have you tried asking your VMWare guys about doing that operation ?

[Eaven HUANG]

2 hours ago, anyweb said:

normally with Virtual Machines you need to first remove any snapshots on that vm, power down the vm and then increase the size of the disk in question, after powering on the vm, you'll see the new expanded space on the disk in disk administration and you can expand the disk into the remaining space

it would be a good idea to have a backup just in case, have you tried asking your VMWare guys about doing that operation ?

Dear Expert,

 

The case is that the drive I'm going to extend is something in the middle, F drive is there along with G, H, I, J etc. So I'm not really sure how the VMWare guy can help with this? we may have the Disk 1 with the extra unallocated space but we can't use it for Drive F directly, can we?

[GarthMJ]

You need to extend disk 1 then you can extend your F:.. However, I personally would take the time to clean up all the chop up drives on one VHD per drive letter. 

I would also look at extending your c Drive and 100GB is on the smaller side. 

[Eaven HUANG]

Dear Garth, I think I've followed your instructions to expand my D drive in question and now passed the prerequisite check. I coverted the disk to dynamic which seems risk-free to me.

 

Regarding my C drive, how can I extend it if I'm not going to convert it again to dynamic? any other options?

On 1/29/2024 at 9:58 PM, GarthMJ said:

You need to extend disk 1 then you can extend your F:.. However, I personally would take the time to clean up all the chop up drives on one VHD per drive letter. 

I would also look at extending your c Drive and 100GB is on the smaller side. 

 

[Eaven HUANG]

On 1/29/2024 at 9:58 PM, GarthMJ said:

You need to extend disk 1 then you can extend your F:.. However, I personally would take the time to clean up all the chop up drives on one VHD per drive letter. 

I would also look at extending your c Drive and 100GB is on the smaller side. 

Thanks all for your help, I converted my disks to dynamic and everything works just fine:)