Dropping Disks from a Disk Group

When you drop a disk from the disk group, the disk group is rebalanced by moving all of the file extents from the dropped disk to other disks in the disk group. ASM then releases the disk, and you can then add it to another disk group or use it for other purposes. You can drop one or multiple disks in a single operation. You can also optionally set rebalance power for the drop operation.

The following is a list of possible reasons for dropping a disk:

• A disk is starting to fail, and you need to replace it.

• You want to upgrade a disk.

• You want to reallocate the disk to a different disk group, or reallocate the disk to a different storage system.

To drop one or more disks from a disk group:

1. Go to the ASM Home page.

   See "Accessing the Automatic Storage Management Home Page".

2. Click the Disk Groups link to display the Disk Groups subpage.

3. If the Automatic Storage Management Login page appears, log in as the SYS user, connecting as SYSASM. Provide the SYS password for the ASM instance. This password was set up when the ASM instance was created.

4. Click a link in the Name column to select the disk group from which you want to drop disks.

   The Disk Group page appears.

5. Under the Member Disks heading, in the Select column, select the check boxes for the disks that you want to drop, and then click Remove.

   A confirmation page appears.

6. If you want to change rebalance power, or if you want set the FORCE option for dropping disks, do the following:

   1. Click Show Advanced Options.

   2. Optionally select the Force option or select a value for rebalance power in the Rebalance Power list.

   Note:

   You may need the FORCE option if ASM cannot read from or write to the disk. See Oracle Database Storage Administrator's Guide for more information about the FORCE option.

7. Click Yes to drop the disks.

   The Disk Group page returns, and displays a state of DROPPING for each disk being dropped.

8. Refresh the page until the dropped disks no longer appear in the disk group.