Adding local storage to XenServer 5.x

Updated post HERE : XenServer 5.6 FP1 add local drive to backup VMs with OpenFiler

BE AWARE !! To follow instructions in this blog post you have to know linux shell and XenServer command line usage. You can wipe data if you don’t understand what you’re trying to do. Try in a TEST environment before making any change in production.

A Citrix KB is available here :

Today I had to add two 500Gb SATAu hard drive to my XenServer. Plug this two hot plug drive in this Dell 2950 III was the easy part, configure the new RAID1 in the Perc 6i controller wasn’t so easy… This bios is very annoying and after 2 hours we found the good menu and where to create the new volume…

Once this step done, and after 16Gb of memory more, XenServer started without any problem, the drive wasn’t available through the XenCenter so I though I had to mount it or something like that.

So here comes the few steps to add a local storage to your XenServer 5.5 :

Type : fdisk -l

you’ll see the list of all volumes and hard drives, then :

Type : pvcreate /dev/sdb

sdb is my new volume

and then to configure it as a local storage :

Type : xe sr-create type=lvm content-type=user device-config:device=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3320620AS_5QF7QZZL name-label=”LOCAL SR”

scsi-SATA_ST3320620AS_5QF7QZZL is the name of my volume, you’ll have to change this value with your own, and name-label is the name you want to give to your local storage.

and this is it !

Remark : If your XenServer is a pool, you need to put it off, follow above steps and put back the XenServer in your pool.