Adding / Dropping Disks From a ASM Disk Group

by Jeff Hunter, Sr. Database Administrator

Contents

1. Overview
2. Identify Candidate Disks
3. Add Disks to a Disk Group
4. Drop Disks from a Disk Group

Overview

This short article provides the steps necessary to add a candidate disk to an already
existing disk group on the Linux platform. It also documents the steps necessary to
remove disks from a running disk group.

For the purpose of this document, I already have an existing disk group named
TESTDB_DATA1. I am not using the ASMLib libraries.

Identify Candidate Disks

The current disk group configuration, (TESTDB_DATA1 and candidate disks not
assigned to any disk group) has the following configuration:
SQL> @asm_disks

Disk Group Name Path File Name Fail Group

--------------- --------------- -------------------- ---------------
TESTDB_DATA1 /dev/raw/raw1 TESTDB_DATA1_0000 CONTROLLER1
/dev/raw/raw2 TESTDB_DATA1_0001 CONTROLLER1
/dev/raw/raw3 TESTDB_DATA1_0002 CONTROLLER2
/dev/raw/raw4 TESTDB_DATA1_0003 CONTROLLER2

[CANDIDATE] /dev/raw/raw5
/dev/raw/raw6
/dev/raw/raw7

In this example, I will be adding two new disks (/dev/raw/raw5 and

/dev/raw/raw6) to the current disk group.

Add Disks to a Disk Group

Finally, let's add the two new disks to the disk group. This needs to be done within the
ASM instance and connected as a user with SYSDBA privileges:
$ ORACLE_SID=+ASM; export ORACLE_SID
$ sqlplus "/ as sysdba"

SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP testdb_data1 ADD

2 FAILGROUP controller1 DISK '/dev/raw/raw5'
3 FAILGROUP controller2 DISK '/dev/raw/raw6' REBALANCE POWER 11;

Diskgroup altered.
After adding the new disks, this is a new view of the disk group configuration:
Disk Group Name Path File Name Fail Group
--------------- --------------- -------------------- ---------------
TESTDB_DATA1 /dev/raw/raw1 TESTDB_DATA1_0000 CONTROLLER1
/dev/raw/raw2 TESTDB_DATA1_0001 CONTROLLER1
/dev/raw/raw3 TESTDB_DATA1_0002 CONTROLLER2
/dev/raw/raw4 TESTDB_DATA1_0003 CONTROLLER2
/dev/raw/raw5 TESTDB_DATA1_0004 CONTROLLER1
/dev/raw/raw6 TESTDB_DATA1_0005 CONTROLLER2

[CANDIDATE] /dev/raw/raw7

Drop Disks from a Disk Group

Now, let's drop the same two new disks from the disk group. This needs to be done
within the ASM instance and connected as a user with SYSDBA privileges:
$ ORACLE_SID=+ASM; export ORACLE_SID
$ sqlplus "/ as sysdba"

SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP testdb_data1 DROP

2 DISK testdb_data1_0004, testdb_data1_0005 REBALANCE POWER 11;

Diskgroup altered.
The current disk group configuration, (TESTDB_DATA1 and candidate disks not
assigned to any disk group) now has the following configuration:
Disk Group Name Path File Name Fail Group
--------------- --------------- -------------------- ---------------
TESTDB_DATA1 /dev/raw/raw1 TESTDB_DATA1_0000 CONTROLLER1
/dev/raw/raw2 TESTDB_DATA1_0001 CONTROLLER1
/dev/raw/raw3 TESTDB_DATA1_0002 CONTROLLER2
/dev/raw/raw4 TESTDB_DATA1_0003 CONTROLLER2

[CANDIDATE] /dev/raw/raw5
/dev/raw/raw6
/dev/raw/raw7