Creating NMV Pools and Adding Disks

Important notes:

  • You can create an unlimited number of pools.

  • NMV-based virtual volumes must have a size which is a multiple of the NMV SAU size. Valid SAU sizes are between 1-2048 megabytes (and must be a power of 2). The default size is 128 MB. A 128 MB SU size can safely handle pools containing up to 1000 TB of storage resources. If you intend on adding more than 1000 TB of storage to the pool, you should increase the SU size accordingly. However, you may have to specify a smaller value when using certain operating systems (such as Solaris).

  • Creating virtual volume mirrors from pools of the same size SAUs allows for greater optimization.

  • NMVs from dynamic pools are, by default, created with a logical size of 2 TB, but can be created up to a maximum logical size of 1 petabyte (PB). After the virtual volume is mapped, the application server will discover a volume whose size is determined by the logical size. NMVs allocate physical storage to these large virtual volumes as demanded by the application servers, allowing your application servers to do their own capacity planning. As the application encroaches on the current physical allocation, additional blocks (SAUs) are automatically taken from the available space in the pool. However, be prepared to add disks to the pool as application servers allocate space and thresholds are approached. After creating your pool, it is important to set the Alert Capacity Threshold to alert you in the Event Log if your pool storage reserves become low.   

Follow these steps to create pools and add raw disks to the pools:
Creating NMV Pools

  1. Open Disk Manager and expand the Disk Manager node in the console tree.

  2. Click on  NMV Pools and select Create New Pool from the context menu or alternatively, click the Create Pool icon SANmelody createnewpoolicon Creating NMV Pools and Adding Disks on the toolbar.

  3. In the New Pool dialog box, enter the pool name and Storage Unit size (sometimes also referred to as Storage Allocation Unit size or SAU) in megabytes. This size cannot be changed. Valid sizes are between 1-2048 MB and must be a power of 2. The default setting is 128 MB.

SANmelody newpool1 Creating NMV Pools and Adding Disks

  1. Click OK to close the dialog box.

Adding Disks

  1. Open the NMV Pools context menu and choose Assign Raw Disk. (Alternatively, Click the Assign Raw Disk icon SANmelody assignrawdisksicon Creating NMV Pools and Adding Disks on the toolbar.) Each unallocated disk discovered in Disk Management shows up in the Available Disks folder as raw disks for use in an NMV pool.

  2. In the Add New Disks to Pool dialog box, in the upper pane select a disk in the list, then select the target pool. Click the right-pointing arrow, which is green when selections are made.

SANmelody newpool2 Creating NMV Pools and Adding Disks

  1. The disks added to the target pool will be listed in the lower-right pane. Click OK when finished.

(You can also remove disks from the pool by choosing them from the list and clicking the left-pointing green arrow.)

  1. Repeat the instructions above to create the required number of pools and add disks.

  2. Apply the configuration changes.

  3. Refer to the Pool Properties topic to set the Alert Capacity Threshold for pools.

  4. You can mirror the raw disks in your pools to make them fault tolerant. This step is optional. Refer to Creating Mirrors in NMV Pools for instructions.

  5. These instructions are performed locally; if you are licensed for HA, you should follow these steps on both servers.

 

Back to Getting Started.

 

Other related topics:  

Pool Status

Pool Properties

Deleting an NMV Pool

Deleting an NMV

Removing Assigned Physical Disks from the Pool

Purging Offline NMVs

Changing Alert Capacity Threshold

Creating NMV Pools and Adding Disks