Dell PowerVault ME5 Series Storage System CLI Reference Guide

Creates a volume in a pool.

Each linear disk-group has a dedicated pool of the same name.

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

volumes unmapped.

To create multiple volumes at once, use the create volume-set command.

create volume

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

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

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

[lun <LUN>]

[ovms-uid <ID>]

[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>]

<name>

Optional. The access permission to use for the mapping: read-write (rw), read-only (ro), or no-access. The default is read-write

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

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

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

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.

lun <LUN>

Optional if the access parameter is set to no-access. Specifies the LUN to assign to the mapping on all ports. If this parameter is specified, the initiator parameter must also be specified.

ovms-uid <ID>

Optional. For a volume to be accessed by an OpenVMS host, assign a volume ID 1-32767 to identify that volume to that host.

The name or serial number of the pool in which to create the volume. For linear storage use the disk group name as the pool value.

Optional. The controller ports through which the host can access the volume. For port syntax, see Command syntax. If this parameter is omitted, all ports are selected

Sets the volume size. The unit is optional (B represents bytes). If base 2 is in use, whether you specify a base-2 or base-10 unit, the resulting size will be in base 2. If no unit is specified, the default is 512-byte blocks.

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 volume size for virtual storage is 128 TiB. The maximum volume size for linear storage is limited only by 64-bit addressing, so 8 ZiB with 512-byte sectors.

For virtual storage, If overcommit is enabled, the size can exceed the physical capacity of the storage pool. To see whether overcommit is enabled, use the show pools command.

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

• 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.

A name for the new volume. The name must be unique system-wide. Input rules:

• The value is case sensitive.
• The value can have a maximum of 32 bytes.
• The value can include spaces and printable UTF-8 characters except: " , . < \
• A value that includes a space must be enclosed in double quotes.

Create the 20-GB volume V1 in pool A, and map it with LUN 5 through ports A1 and B1 to an initiator.

# create volume pool a size 20GB ports a1,b1 lun 5 initiator initiator001 V1

Create a 100-GB volume named MyVolume in pool A, map it to use LUN 5 with read-write access through port 1 in each controller, add it to volume group MyGroup, and tune tier-migration for performance.

# create volume MyVolume pool A size 100GB access rw lun 5 initiator Host2 ports 1 volume-group MyGroup tier-affinity performance

Create volume Vol1 with snapshot retention priority high.

# create volume snapshot-retention-priority

create volume-set

delete volumes

set volume

show pools

show ports

show volume-groups

show volumes