Edit a Volume

Some notes about editing a volume:
  • You can modify most volume configuration options, such as access restrictions, volume limit, performance policy, and the volume collection assignment after you have created the volume.
  • You cannot change the location of a volume with the Volume Edit command. You must use the Volume Move command to change the folder or pool in which a volume resides.
  • You cannot modify the following settings after the volume has been created.
    • Encryption settings
    • Block size

      You can only change the performance policy to another performance policy that has the same block size.

    • Application category, if the volume was ever deduplicated
  • If you are editing a volume with reserved space (thick provisioned) and you enable deduplication, the reserve will be reset to 0 (thin provisioned).
  • If the volume is replicated, any allowable attribute changes are propogated to both the upstream and the downstream volumes.
NOTE: For information on volume restrictions with synchronous replication, see Synchronous Replication Prerequisites and Limitations.

When you edit a volume, you can navigate directly to any page using the progress bar at the top of the page. You do not need to perform any steps on the intervening tabs. After you make the desired edit or edits, you can click Save without navigating to the last tab.

  1. Choose Manage → Data Storage.
  2. Click the link of the volume you want to modify.
  3. Click Edit.
  4. On the General page, make the changes to the following:
    • Name
    • Description
    • Performance Policy

      If you choose Create Performance Policy, complete the information requested in the Create Performance Policy dialog box.

  5. Click Next.
  6. (Optional) Configure the size of the volume on the Space page.
    1. (Optional) In the Deduplication area, deselect Enable.
    2. In the Thresholds area, allocate space for the following:
      Space Description
      Volume Reserve Amount of space prereserved for the volume. If deduplication is enabled when creating the volume, the reserve is set to Thin Provisioning.

      If deduplication was ever enabled on the volume, you cannot set a volume reserve, even if deduplication is disabled.
      Volume Limit Maximum allowed usage for the volume, defined as a percent of volume size. If the volume usage exceeds this value, the volume is taken offline or made read-only, based on how the associated performance policy is configured. For a thickly provisioned volume, the volume limit is 100%.
  7. Click Next.
  8. (Optional) On the Protection page, select one of the following:
    Option Description
    No volume collection: No protection Click Next.
    Join a volume collection Choose the volume collection from the drop-down and click Next.
    Create a new volume collection Continue with the steps that follow.
    Protect as a standalone volume

    The difference between protecting a volume with a volume collection and standalone volume protection is that the standalone volume collection is intended to be associated only with the one volume. So when the volume is deleted, the standalone volume collection is also deleted. Other volumes cannot be associated with a volume collection that is associated with a standalone volume.

    Continue with the steps that follow. The new volume collection name is automatically generated.

    1. In the Create Volume Collection page, complete the fields.
    2. Choose a method of application synchronization. Select one of the following:
      • None
      • Microsoft VSS – Type the hostname or IP address of the application server and choose an application from the drop-down list.
      • VMware vCenter – Type the hostname or IP address of the vCenter host, and the corresponding user name and password.
    3. For the Synchronization Service, select one of the following options.
      This quiesces application I/O when snapshots are created to ensure application-consistent backups and replicas.
      Option Description
      None Create snapshots that do not need synchronization.
      Microsoft VSS® Create application-consistent snapshots for applicable types of Microsoft applications, including Hyper-V. Synchronization quiesces volume traffic before a snapshot is taken. This ensures that your application never has a snapshot with incomplete data. Select the appropriate application and provide further information such as the application server address. For detailed information, see the Windows Integration Guide.
      VMware® vCenter™ Create snapshots through a VMware vCenter Server. This ensures that snapshots are VMFS-consistent. The first time you create a volume collection with schedules that use this synchronization setting, you need to provide the vCenter host name or IP address, user name, and password. For detailed information, see the VMware Integration Guide.

      To help eliminate possible performance issues for snapshot schedules that synchronize with Microsoft Exchange®, run the snapshot verification no more than once daily.

    4. Click Next.
  9. (Optional) Make the desired changes on the Access page.
    1. Click Add to add ACLs.
  10. Click Next.
  11. (Optional) Make the desired changes on the Performance page.
    For Volume Caching, you should use the Pinned setting only for volumes that require a 100% cache hit rate.
    NOTE: If deduplication was enabled on the volume when it was created, cache pinning cannot be enabled, even if you deselected deduplication on the Space page.
  12. Click Save.