Clarification on Supported Method for Extending Existing Disk Capacity in Check Point Gaia OS

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Background

We recently raised a TAC case to extend storage on two MDS servers and two MLM servers after increasing the size of the existing virtual disks at the VMware layer. Although the disk expansion was successfully completed within VMware, the additional storage capacity is not being detected by the Check Point Gaia OS, making it unavailable for LVM allocation and subsequent filesystem expansion.

Current Findings

Based on the relevant Check Point SK article, there appear to be two potential approaches for increasing storage capacity:

1. Add a new virtual disk and extend storage using the new disk
2. Extend the existing virtual disk and expand the underlying storage

From an operational perspective, the "add new disk" method is less desirable because it can introduce additional administrative overhead, particularly during future upgrades where extra disk management activities may be required. As a result, our preferred approach is to extend the existing disk capacity, which provides a cleaner and more sustainable long-term solution.

TAC Recommendation

TAC has advised against extending the existing disk and recommends one of the following:

• Adding a new disk and using it for storage expansion, or
• Rebuilding the server through an export/import migration process.

Discussion Points

We would appreciate insights from the community on the following:

• Is extending an existing virtual disk technically unsupported or restricted in Check Point Gaia OS?
• Are there any supported procedures, validation steps, or workarounds that allow Gaia OS to detect and utilize newly allocated VMware storage on an existing disk?
• Has anyone successfully performed an online or offline expansion of an existing Gaia disk in a VMware environment?
• Are there specific Gaia versions, partitioning schemes, or deployment models that influence whether this approach is supported?

Objective

Our goal is to understand whether there is a supported and reliable method to extend existing disk capacity within Gaia OS without introducing additional disks or requiring a complete server rebuild, while maintaining long-term operational simplicity and upgrade compatibility.

We welcome any experiences, best practices, or official guidance from those who have encountered a similar scenario.