10.3. Shrinking Volumes

You can shrink volumes while the trusted storage pool is online and available. For example, you might need to remove a brick that has become inaccessible in a distributed volume due to hardware or network failure.

Note

Data residing on the brick that you are removing will no longer be accessible at the glusterFS mount point if you run the command with force or without any option. With start option, the data gets migrated to the other bricks and only the configuration information is removed - you can continue to access the data directly from the brick.

When shrinking distributed replicated and distributed striped volumes, you need to remove a number of bricks that is a multiple of the replica or stripe count. For example, to shrink a distributed striped volume with a stripe count of 2, you need to remove bricks in multiples of 2 (such as 4, 6, 8, etc.). In addition, the bricks you are trying to remove must be from the same sub-volume (the same replica or stripe set). In a non-replicated volume, all bricks should be up to perform remove brick operation (to migrate data). In a replicated volume, at least one of the brick in the replica should be up.

To shrink a volume

Remove the brick using the following command:
# gluster volume remove-brick VOLNAME BRICK start
For example, to remove server2:/exp2:
```
# gluster volume remove-brick test-volume server2:/exp2 start
Remove Brick start successful
```

(Optional) View the status of the remove brick operation using the following command:

# gluster volume remove-brick VOLNAME BRICK status

For example, to view the status of remove brick operation on server2:/exp2 brick:

# gluster volume remove-brick test-volume server2:/exp2 status
      Node    Rebalanced-files          size       scanned      failures         status
 ---------         -----------   -----------   -----------   -----------   ------------
 localhost                  16      16777216            52             0    in progress
192.168.1.1                 13      16723211            47             0    in progress

When the data migration is complete and when the gluster volume remove-brick VOLNAME BRICK status command displays the status as Completed, run the following command:
# gluster volume remove-brick VOLNAME BRICK commit
For example,
# gluster volume remove-brick test-volume server2:/exp2 commit
Enter y to confirm the operation. The command displays the following message indicating that the remove brick operation is successfully started:
```
Remove Brick successful
```

Check the volume information using the following command:

# gluster volume info

The command displays information similar to the following:

# gluster volume info
Volume Name: test-volume
Type: Distribute
Status: Started
Number of Bricks: 3
Bricks:
Brick1: server1:/exp1
Brick3: server3:/exp3
Brick4: server4:/exp4

10.3.1. Stopping Remove Brick Operation

Important

Stopping remove-brick operation is a technology preview feature. Technology Preview features are not fully supported under Red Hat subscription level agreements (SLAs), may not be functionally complete, and are not intended for production use. However, these features provide early access to upcoming product innovations, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process. As Red Hat considers making future iterations of Technology Preview features generally available, we will provide commercially reasonable efforts to resolve any reported issues that customers experience when using these features.

You can cancel remove-brick operation. After executing a remove-brick operation, you can choose to stop the remove-brick operation by executing stop command. The files which are already migrated during remove-brick operation, will not be migrated back to the same brick.

To stop remove brick operation

Stop the remove brick operation using the following command:

# gluster volume remove-brick VOLNAME BRICK stop

For example:

# gluster volume rebalance test-volume stop
                                Node  Rebalanced-files  size  scanned       status
                           ---------  ----------------  ----  -------  -----------
617c923e-6450-4065-8e33-865e28d9428f               59   590      244       stopped
Stopped rebalance process on volume test-volume