# Expanding the Online Capacity of a Virtual Drive

The Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) function lets you expand the capacity of a virtual disk by adding new physical disks or making use of unused space on existing disks, without requiring a reboot. Perform the following steps to expand the capacity of a virtual drive.
Attention: Make sure to back up the data on the virtual drive before you proceed with the OCE.

1. Navigate to the Controller dashboard, click a drive group name (for example, DG_1) then click the icon that corresponds to a drive group to display its contents.
   The virtual drives and physical drives associated with the selected drive group appear.
2. Click the virtual drive whose capacity you want to expand.
3. Select Actions > Expand.
   The Expand Virtual Drive dialog appears.
   Figure 1. Expand Virtual Drive Dialog
4. Select the percentage of the available capacity that you want the virtual drive to use.
5. Click Expand.
   The virtual drive expands by the selected percentage of the available capacity.

Parent topic: Managing Virtual Drives