Spare drives and copy-back mode

Spare drives are mounted separately from the data drives for usual write and read operation. If a failure occurs in a data drive, data is copied to a spare drive so that the storage system can continue to be available.

Copy-back mode determines whether data on a spare drive is returned to a data drive after recovery. If copy-back mode is enabled, when a failed drive is recovered, data is moved from the spare drive to the recovered drive. If copy-back mode is disabled, when a failed drive is recovered, data is left on the spare drive. This mode can be specified for each parity group.

The following maximum number of spare drives can be specified for each storage system:

• VSP G200: 16
• VSP G400, G600, VSP F400, F600: 32
• VSP G800, VSP F800: 64

Parent Topic

• Configuring custom-sized provisioning

  Configuring custom-sized provisioning involves creating and configuring custom-size volumes (CVs). CVs are created by dividing a fixed-sized volume (FV) into several smaller volumes of arbitrary sizes.

Child Topics

• Assigning spare drives

  Spare drives are used to store data if a data drive fails.

• Releasing spare drives

  You can release spare drives so they can be used as data drives.

• Editing copy-back mode

  Copy-back mode determines whether data on spare drives is restored after a failed drive is recovered.