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What system volumes are

System volumes are FlexVol volumes that contain special metadata, such as metadata for file services audit logs. These volumes are visible in the cluster so that you can fully account for storage use in your cluster.

System volumes are owned by the cluster management server (also called the admin SVM), and they are created automatically when file services auditing is enabled.

You can view system volumes by using the volume show command, but most other volume operations are not permitted. For example, you cannot modify a system volume by using the volume modify command.

This example shows four system volumes on the admin SVM, which were automatically created when file services auditing was enabled for a data SVM in the cluster:
cluster1::> volume show -vserver cluster1
Vserver   Volume       Aggregate    State      Type       Size  Available Used%
--------- ------------ ------------ ---------- ---- ---------- ---------- -----
cluster1  MDV_aud_1d0131843d4811e296fc123478563412 
                       aggr0        online     RW          2GB     1.90GB    5%
cluster1  MDV_aud_8be27f813d7311e296fc123478563412 
                       root_vs0     online     RW          2GB     1.90GB    5%
cluster1  MDV_aud_9dc4ad503d7311e296fc123478563412 
                       aggr1        online     RW          2GB     1.90GB    5%
cluster1  MDV_aud_a4b887ac3d7311e296fc123478563412 
                       aggr2        online     RW          2GB     1.90GB    5%
4 entries were displayed.