Create a Volume

Volumes are also referred to as logical units (LUNs). They are the building blocks of any storage system. A host connects to the volume via iSCSI or Fibre Channel, and the volume appears to the host as a single disk drive, which can be used as a file system, a raw disk, or a virtual disk.

NOTE:

The --chapuser and --multi_initiator options for the vol command apply only to iSCSI volumes.

The --cached_pinned and --dedupe_enabled options cannot both be enabled for the same volume created on a hybrid flash array that supports deduplication.

  1. Create a volume.
    vol --create name --size mebibytes [--description text] [--perfpolicy name] [--iops_limit iops] [--mbps_limit mbps] [--cached_pinned {yes |no}] [--thinly_provisioned {yes | no}] [--limit percent] [--start_offline] [--apply_acl_to {volume |snapshot |both}] [--chapuser user_name ] [--initiatorgrp group name] [--lun lun ] [--multi_initiator {yes |no}] [--pool pool_name ] [--folder folder_name ] [--agent_type {smis |none}] [--encryption_cypher {aes-256-xts |none}] [--dedupe_enabled {yes |no}] [--iscsi_target_scope {volume | group}]

    Be aware of the following when creating a volume:

    • If you set --dedupe_enabled to yes, you cannot set --thinly_provisioned to no at the same time. A volume with deduplication enabled is thinly provisioned by default.

      Once deduplication is enabled for a volume, the volume reserve and application category cannot be changed, even if deduplication is later disabled.

    • Volumes created in a group that is configured for iSCSI Group Scope Target (GST) inherit the --iscsi_target_scope of group. You must specify the --iscsi_target_scope as volume if you want the volume to be a volume scoped target (VST).
    • If you set --thin_provisioned to yes, you must enter a volume --limit as a numeric value between 0 and 100 percent. The volume limit is a percentage of the volume reserve.
      NOTE: The volume will be taken offline after the volume limit is reached.
    • If the volume description contains spaces, enclose all characters and spaces of the text variable in quotation marks. If you do not, the volume description will be truncated at the first space.
  2. (Optional) Add an ACL to grant access to the volume to an initiator group.
    vol --addacl test1 --initiatorgrp group_name
    NOTE:

    See Create an iSCSI Initiator Group for the procedure to create an iSCSI initiator group.

    See Create a Fibre Channel Initiator Group for the procedure to create a Fibre Channel initiator group.

    See vol in the Command Reference for more detail about the vol command.

Creating a volume named test1, specifying its size and thin provisioning.

$ vol --create test1 --size 10000 --thinly_provisioned yes --limit 95

Creating a volume named test1, specifying its size, thin provisioning, and setting the encryption cypher to AES 256 XTS.

$ vol --create test1 --size 10000 --thinly_provisioned yes --limit 95 --encryption aes-256-xts

Creating a volume named test1, specifying its size, thin provisioning, and providing a description.

$ vol --create test1 --size 10000 --thinly_provisioned yes --limit 95 --description "for all departments"

Creating a volume named test1, specifying its size, thin provisioning, applying the performance policy Policy1, and setting the cache pinned option to yes.

$ vol --create test1 --size 10000 --thinly_provisioned yes --limit 95 --perfpolicy Policy1 --cached_pinned yes

Adding an ACL to grant access to the volume test1 to the initiator group Dataman.

$ vol --addacl test1 --initiatorgrp Dataman
  • Configure the iSCSI or Fibre Channel connections on your volumes to connect to the group leader array.
  • Configure the iSCSI or Fibre Channel connections for your server or host to access those volumes.
  • Configure your client initiator according to the vendor's recommendations.