Dell PowerVault ME5 Series Storage System CLI Reference Guide

Creates a specified number of volumes in a linear disk group or virtual pool.

You must specify a base name and a size for the volumes. You can optionally map the volumes to hosts. By default, this command will create the volumes unmapped.

Volume sizes are aligned to 4.2 MB (4 MiB) boundaries. When a volume is created or expanded, if the resulting size would be less than 4.2 MB it will be increased to 4.2 MB; if the resulting size would be greater than 4.2 MB it will be decreased to the nearest 4.2 MB boundary.

For virtual storage, you can set the retention priority for snapshots of the volume. If automatic deletion of snapshots is enabled, the system uses the retention priority of snapshots to determine which, if any, snapshots to delete. Snapshots are considered to be eligible for deletion if they have any retention priority other than never-delete. Eligible snapshots are considered for deletion by priority and age. The oldest, lowest priority snapshots are deleted first. Snapshots that are mapped or are not leaves of a volume’s snapshot tree are not eligible for automatic deletion.

create volume-set

[access read-write|rw|read-only|ro|no-access]

[baselun <base-LUN>]

basename <base-name>

count <#>

[initiator <initators>|<hosts>|<host-groups>]

[large-virtual-extents enabled|disabled|on|off]

[pool <pool>]

[ports <ports>]

size <size>[B|KB|MB|GB|TB|KiB|MiB|GiB|TiB]

[snapshot-retention-priority never-delete|high|medium|low]

[tier-affinity no-affinity|archive|performance]

[volume-group <volume-group>]

Optional. The access permission to use for the mapping:read-write (rw, read-only (ro), or no-access. If no-access is specified, the volume is not mapped. The default is read-write.

Optional. The first in a sequence of LUNs to assign to map the volumes through ports specified by the ports parameter. If the baselun and ports parameters are omitted, the volumes are not mapped. If a LUN to be assigned to a volume is already in use, an error message is displayed and that volume and any subsequent volumes are not mapped. If this parameter is specified, the initiator parameter must also be specified.

A name to which a number will be appended to generate a different name for each volume. Volume names must be unique system-wide. Input rules:

• The value is case sensitive.
• The value can have a maximum of 16 bytes.
• The value can include spaces and printable UTF-8 characters except: " , . < \
• A value that includes a space must be enclosed in double quotes.

Resulting volumes are numbered sequentially starting with 0000. If volumes with the specified basename already exist, names of new volumes start with the first available name in the sequence. For example: for basename pA_v, if pA_v0000 and pA_ v0002 exist, the next volumes created will be pA_v0001 and pA_v0003.

The number of volumes to create, from 1 to 128. Volumes will be created up to the maximum number supported per pool.

Optional. Specifies a comma-separated list of initiators or hosts or host-groups that can access the volume. If this parameter is specified, the baselun parameter must also be specified.

Optional. For a virtual volume, this sets whether the system will try to allocate pages in a sequentially optimized way to reduce I/O latency and improve performance.

• disabled or off: Optimized page allocation is disabled. This is the default.
• enabled or on: Optimized page allocation is enabled

pool <pool>

ports <ports>

Optional. The controller ports through which the host can access the volume.. For port syntax, see Command syntax.

size <size>[B|KB|MB|GB|TB|KiB|MiB|GiB|TiB]

A value less than 4.2 MB (4 MiB) will be increased to 4.2 MB. A value greater than 4.2 MB will be decreased to the nearest 4.2 MB boundary. The maximum size of a virtual volume is 140 TB (128 TiB). The maximum size of a linear volume is equal to the maximum size limit of the disk group.

If overcommit is enabled, the volume size can exceed the physical capacity of the storage pool. To see whether overcommit is enabled, use the show pools command. If overcommit is disabled and the combined size of the volumes will exceed the capacity of the storage pool, an error message is displayed and no volumes are created.

Optional. For virtual storage, this specifies the retention priority for snapshots of the volume set.

• never-delete: Snapshots will never be deleted.
• high: Snapshots may be deleted after all eligible medium-priority snapshots have been deleted
• medium: Snapshots may be deleted after all eligible low-priority snapshots have been deleted. This is the default.
• low: Snapshots may be deleted.

Optional. For virtual storage, this specifies how to tune the tier-migration algorithm for the volume:

• no-affinity: This setting uses the highest available performing tiers first and only uses the Archive tier when space is exhausted in the other tiers. Volume data will swap into higher performing tiers based on frequency of access and tier space availability. This is the default.
• archive: This setting prioritizes the volume data to the least performing tier available. Volume data can move to higher performing tiers based on frequency of access and available space in the tiers.
• performance: This setting prioritizes volume data to the higher performing tiers. If no space is available, lower performing tier space is used. Performance affinity volume data will swap into higher tiers based upon frequency of access or when space is made available

Optional. The name of a volume group to which to add the volume. A name that includes a space must be enclosed in double quotes. If the group does not exist, it will be created

# create volume-set count 2 size 100GB pool b basename MyVol- volume-group MyVG

Create three 20-GB volumes with the base name pA_vin pool A, and map them starting with LUN 5 with read-only access through port A1 to three initiators.

# create volume-set pool B count 4 size 5MB basename BV1_ snapshot-retention-priority high volume-group Vol1

create volume

delete volumes

map volume

set volume

show maps

show pools

show volume-groups

show volumes

unmap volume