Dell PowerVault ME4 Series Storage System Administrator’s Guide

Create linear volumes

Perform the following steps to create linear volumes:

1. Perform one of the following:
   • In the Pools topic, select a linear pool in the pools table and Action > Create Volumes.
   • In the Volumes topic, select Action > Create Linear Volumes.
   The Create Linear Volumes panel opens.
2. Optional: If you started creating the volume through the Volumes topic, you can change the linear pool for the volume.
3. Optional: Change the number of copies to create by modifying the default of 1. See the System configuration limits topic in the PowerVault Manager help for the maximum number of volumes per controller.
   NOTE:After selecting more than one copy, the next time that you place your cursor in another field, the Create Linear Volumes panel will collapse, so that the snapshot options no longer appear.
4. Optional: Change the volume name. The default is pool-name_vn, where n starts at 0001. A volume name is case-sensitive and can have a maximum of 32 bytes. It cannot already exist in the system or include the following: " * , . < > \
   If the name is used by another volume, the name is automatically changed to be unique. For example, MyVolume would change to MyVolume0001, or Volume2 would change to Volume3.
5. Change the volume size, including unit of measurement. You can use any of the following units: MiB, GiB, TiB, MB, GB, TB. The maximum size depends on the unused capacity of the volume pool. See System configuration limits topic in the PowerVault Manager help for the maximum volume size that the system supports.
   Volume sizes are aligned to 4.2 MB (4 MiB) boundaries. When a volume is created or expanded, if the resulting size is less than 4.2 MB, it will be increased to 4.2 MB. A value greater than 4.2 MB, it will be decreased to the nearest 4.2 MB boundary.

   NOTE:Disk group space is allocated in 8 GiB memory chunks. There must be a minimum of 8 GiB remaining in the disk group and you should expect disk group space to be consumed by multiples of 8 GiB regardless of the volume size requested.
6. Click OK. The volumes are created, and the volumes table is updated.