Converting Traditional Volumes to Logical Volumes

You can convert traditional volumes to logical volumes. This is not an automatic process or an in-place upgrade. You need to ensure you have enough space to transition from a traditional volume to a logical volume and maintain your attributes. The conversion utility is a server command that copies the data from a traditional volume to an NSS logical volume in an NSS storage pool. (For example, if you want to move a 2 GB volume, you need to have at least 2 GB of free space available. The original volume will be renamed volumename_old. The new logical volume will keep the original volume name.

Volume Conversion

After you copy the traditional volume to a logical volume, you can restart the server to ensure the volume converted properly. If the volume converted, you can remove the traditional volume. After you copy traditional volume data to a logical volume in NetWare 6, you cannot access the new logical volume in NetWare 5.1. You would need to either retain the data in the traditional volume, or copy the data back to the traditional volume.

The volume conversion utility can convert volumes with long names.

The following is a sample command line with all the available parameters for converting traditional volumes:

vcu /p /l /i /d /r originalVolume nssPool [ds_container [ds_volName]]

• /p: Do not print directory file names.
• /l: Do not write errors to log file (Dst_Vol:error.out).
• /i:Keep file COMPRESS_FILE_IMMEDIATELY_BIT.
• /d: Delete original volume if copy process is successful. If you choose to delete the traditional volume, the new volume will retain the name of the that volume.
• /r: Remove xxx_new NSS volume and restore xxx traditional volume (use this option if you want to keep the original volume name for the new logical volume name).
• ds_container: Original volume' DS container
• ds_volumeName: If specified, the vcu conversion utility uses this name to rename or delete the original volume's DS object. Otherwise, vcu.nlm uses serverame_originalVolName as the default DS name

The parameters in this list are optional; you can include any of the parameters in the list.

To convert a volume, you specify the volume to convert and then specify the NSS pool where you want to store the data from the volume. Enter the following at the server console:

vcu volume_name pool_name

For example,

vcu apps poolone

In this example, the volume conversion utility copies the data in the volume apps and places it in Poolone.

If you want to keep the name of the traditional volume and use it for the new logical volume, enter the following at the server console:

vcu /r xxxx yyyy_old[ds_container[ds_volName]]

In this example, xxxx is the original traditional volume name, yyyy_old is the modified traditional volume name. If xxxx is longer than 11 characters, yyyy_old might be VCU0000_old, otherwise yyyy_old will be xxxx_old.

Modifying NDS Objects

The volume conversion utility lets you modify the NDS objects and physical names for both logical and traditional volumes except the VOL SYS. Use the following commands VCU commands if you want to change the NDS objects with the volume conversion process.

Volume copy

vcu VCUTargetVolName NSSPoolName [DS_container DS_NSSPool_name DS_volname]

Volume restore

vcu /r VCUTargetVolName VCUTargetVOlName_old [DS_container DS_NSSPool_name DS_Volname