Expanding upon what I meant before --  If you were to do this manually, the steps involved would be something like this:  - Create a clone with the same number of meta members as the source device, and the same striped/concat config as the source device, but with large meta members - Create and activate a TimeFinder/Clone session between the source and clone device - Shutdown production host apps, de-provision source device from host, and provision clone device to host - Rediscover clone dev on host, remount, and restart app  The symconfigure expansion method retains the identity (SymDev and LUN WWN) of the original device, so no outage is required.  Hope that helps...  - Sean
Hi,  i did look at [URL] and successfully expanded a bound stripe volume and preserved the data (thanks to all of you [IMAGE]) And i do understand the key is to create bcv devices with the same configuration as source meta "symconfigure -sid 3905 -cmd "add dev 3a0:3a1 to meta 39c, protect_data=TRUE,bcv_meta_head=65d;" - (copied from Sean's answer in the post) And i also understand its the symm (array) thats estabilishing mirror (local) replication relationship between source meta, given meta head, copied the contents, reconfigured the stripes, copied the data back and removed the relationship (split/detach). Now the bcv can be used as back up or unbound, dissolved and deleted. i have verfied all and works like charm. And its online operation as well as the writes were written to back, which copied back to source before the completion - which is cool [IMAGE]   Here is my question: Say for example, i dont want to use the bcv, create a clone for the source meta, restripe the meta without data protection, synced the data back from the clone i created - is it still same? yes, i understand array did the heavy lifiting for me and same thing by bcv.   but i am trying to understand if i do everything by myself will it give me any added flexibiliy? or its just duplicate work that array did for me for free which is sure to be worked as people have been using for years? is using clone in lieu of bcv gives me any added advantage?    Thank you
why should i use bcv devices to expand stripe meta or, can i do everything by 
myself using clones?