Skip to main content

Concepts

Learn more about...

  • How pools and volume groups work
    To provision storage, you create either a pool or volume group that will contain the Hard Disk Drives (HDD) or Solid State Disk (SSD) drives that you want to use in your storage array.
  • Capacity terminology
    Learn how the capacity terms apply to your storage array.
  • How reserved capacity works
    Reserved capacity is automatically created when copy service operations, such as snapshots or asynchronous mirroring operations, are provided for your volumes. The purpose of reserved capacity is to store data changes on these volumes, should something go wrong. Like volumes, reserved capacity is created from pools or volume groups.
  • How SSD Cache works
    The SSD Cache feature is a controller-based solution that caches the most frequently accessed data ("hot" data) onto lower latency Solid State Drives (SSDs) to dynamically accelerate system performance. SSD Cache is used exclusively for host reads.
  • SSD Cache restrictions
    Learn about the restrictions when using SSD Cache on your storage array.
  • Decide whether to use a pool or a volume group
    You can create volumes using either a pool or a volume group. The best selection depends primarily on the key storage requirements such as the expected I/O workload, the performance requirements, and the data protection requirements.
  • Functional comparison of pools and volume groups
    The function and purpose of a pool and a volume group are the same. Both objects are a set of drives logically grouped together in a storage array and are used to create volumes that a host can access.
  • Automatic versus manual pool creation
    You create pools automatically or manually to allow physical storage to be grouped, and then dynamically allocated as needed. When a pool is created, you can add physical drives.