METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DYNAMICALLY EXPANDING A STORAGE SYSTEM

1 . A method for migrating data from a source mass storage device to a destination mass storage device within a system, wherein the data storage capacity of the destination mass storage device is greater than the data storage capacity of the source mass storage device, wherein the source mass storage device is in an available for operation (UP) state, the method comprising:

changing the state of the destination mass storage device from an unavailable for operation (DN) state to a reserved for data migration (RV) state;

performing a disk copy operation from the source mass storage device to the destination mass storage device, wherein the disk copy operation migrates data from the source mass storage device to the destination mass storage device, and wherein the destination mass storage device takes on the smaller data storage capacity of the source mass storage device;

changing the state of the destination mass storage device from the reserved for data migration (RV) state to an available for operation (UP) state;

changing the state of the source mass storage device from the available for operation (UP) state to an unavailable for operation (DN) state;

performing an Expand Disk operation within the destination mass storage device, wherein the Expand Disk operation expands the size of data storage capacity of the destination mass storage device from the smaller data storage capacity of the source mass storage device; and

removing the source mass storage device from the system.

2 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein performing an Expand Disk operation within the destination mass storage device comprises:

determining a maximum number of tracks within the destination mass storage device to expand the destination mass storage device,

creating a new master bit table (MBT) file based on the maximum number of tracks within the destination mass storage device to expand the destination mass storage device, wherein the new master bit table file describes a new expanded area of the destination mass storage device,

allocating in the new expanded area of the destination mass storage device a new master bit table based on the new master bit table file, wherein the new master bit table includes a plurality of tracks,

updating the field maximum capacity in the destination mass storage device based on the new expanded area of the destination mass storage device, and

converting the plurality of tracks of the new master bit table to a plurality of master file directory file (MFDF) sectors, wherein the plurality of MFDF sectors represent an expanded data storage area within the destination mass storage device,

3 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein migrating data from the source mass storage device to the destination mass storage device is performed without the system being rebooted.

4 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the source mass storage device is a computer hard drive.

5 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the destination mass storage device is a computer hard drive.

6 . The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the disk copy operation is performed by using a diskcopy (DC) command.

7 . A method for dynamically expanding a destination mass storage device during a data migration from a source mass storage device to the destination mass storage device within a system, the method comprising:

determining a maximum number of tracks within the destination mass storage device to expand the destination mass storage device;

creating a new master bit table (MBT) file based on the maximum number of tracks within the destination mass storage device to expand the destination mass storage device, wherein the new master bit table file describes a new expanded area of the destination mass storage device;

allocating in the new expanded area of the destination mass storage device a new master bit table based on the new master bit table file, wherein the new master bit table includes a plurality of tracks;

updating the field maximum capacity in the destination mass storage device based on the new expanded area of the destination mass storage device; and

converting the plurality of tracks of the new master bit table to a plurality of master file directory file (MFDF) sectors, wherein the plurality of MFDF sectors represent an expanded data storage area within the destination mass storage device.

8 . The method as recited in claim 7 , wherein creating a new master bit table file includes creating device allocation descriptor tables (DADS) of the new master bit table file, and wherein the device allocation descriptor tables describes the new expanded area of the destination mass storage device.

9 . The method as recited in claim 8 , wherein allocating a new master bit table in the new expanded area of the destination mass storage device includes reading in a hardware master bit table, clearing any padded area at the end of the hardware master bit table, and writing the hardware master bit table to the new master bit table file.

10 . The method as recited in claim 9 , wherein allocating a new master bit table in the new expanded area of the destination mass storage device includes reading in a software master bit table, updating any padding area updates made to the hardware master bit table, and writing the software master bit table to the new master bit table file.

11 . The method as recited in claim 7 , wherein creating a new master bit table file includes creating a file associated with the destination mass storage device, and wherein the file associated with the destination mass storage device describes the new expanded area of the destination mass storage device.

12 . The method as recited in claim 7 , wherein converting the plurality of tracks of the new master bit table to a plurality of master file directory file (MFDF) sectors includes converting a plurality of hardware master bit table tracks to MFDF sectors,

13 . The method as recited in claim 7 , wherein converting the plurality of tracks of the new master bit table to a plurality of master file directory file (MFDF) sectors includes converting a plurality of software master bit table tracks to MFDF sectors.

14 . The method as recited in claim 7 , wherein converting the plurality of tracks of the new master bit table to a plurality of master file directory file (MFDF) sectors includes creating a plurality of DASs.

15 . The method as recited in claim 14 , wherein device relative addresses in the plurality of DASs are converted from word relative addresses to track relative addresses.

16 . The method as recited in claim 7 , wherein dynamically expanding the destination mass storage device during the data migration from the source mass storage device to the destination mass storage is performed without the system being rebooted.

17 . The method as recited in claim 7 , wherein the destination mass storage device is a computer hard drive,

18 . The method as recited in claim 7 , wherein the source mass storage device is a computer hard drive.

19 . The method as recited in claim 7 , wherein the method is performed by using a diskcopy (DC) command.