Tools > Storage Manager > Drive Pools

Drive pools are groups of tape drives allocated for various administrator-defined storage tasks, and enable you to delimit storage processes based on data type, performance, security, location, or all of these variables. Drive pools can reside in a single tape library or span multiple tape libraries.

If you have multiple tape libraries, you can use Dynamic Library Pooling (DLP) to improve data availability and data protection by intelligently managing data across multiple tape libraries. See Dynamic Library Pooling (DLP).

Parameter Description

Drive Pool Name

The name of the drive pools currently configured.

Member Count

The number of drives the pool contains.

Member Drive ID List

The internal StorNext ID of the drives the pool contains.
  1. On the Tools menu, click Storage Manager, and then click Drive Pools.
  2. Select the drive pool whose information you want to see, and then click View. The following information appears:
    • Serial Number: The serial numbers of all tape drives in the drive pool.
    • Drive Alias: The corresponding alias number for each drive.
    • Media Type: The type of tape drive media for each drive (for example, LTO, Lattus, S3COMPAT, Q-Cloud, or a Storage Disk).
    • Library: The name of the library to which each drive belongs.
    • Pool Name: The name of the drive pool to which each drive belongs.
  3. When you are finished viewing drive pool information, click Done.

Note: This procedure requires restarting the StorNext Storage Manager component.

  1. On the Tools menu, click Storage Manager, and then click Drive Pools.
  2. Click New to add a new drive pool.
  3. Enter the following fields:
    • Drive Pool Name: The name of the new drive pool you are creating.
    • Available Drives: Select one or more available drives for the new drive pool.
  4. Click Apply.
  5. When the confirmation message appears, click Yes to proceed or No to abort.
  6. After a message informs you that the drive pool was successfully created, click OK to continue.

Note: This procedure requires restarting the StorNext Storage Manager component.

  1. On the Tools menu, click Storage Manager, and then click Drive Pools.
  2. Select the drive pool you want to modify, and then click Edit.
  3. Select or deselect available drives for the drive pool (you cannot change the drive pool name).
  4. Perform one of the following:
    • Click Add Drives to add the selected drives from the drive pool.
    • Click Remove Drives to remove the selected drives from the drive pool.
  5. Click Done to confirm your changes.
  6. When the confirmation message appears, click Yes to proceed or No to abort.
  7. After a message informs you that the drive pool was successfully modified, click OK to continue.

Before you begin, you must first remove all drives in the pool you want to delete. Follow the procedure in Edit a Drive Pool to remove all drives from the pool.

Caution: At least one drive pool must be configured at all times. Do not delete the default drive pool.

  1. On the Tools menu, click Storage Manager, and then click Drive Pools.
  2. Select the drive pool you want to delete, and then click Delete.
  3. When a confirmation message appears, click Yes to proceed with the deletion or No to abort.
  4. After a message informs you that the drive pool was successfully deleted, click OK.

If you have multiple tape libraries, you can use Dynamic Library Pooling (DLP) to improve data availability and data protection by intelligently managing data across multiple tape libraries. DLP provides the flexibility to spread your data fairly evenly across multiple libraries, thereby achieving data redundancy and protection at the tape library level. In a situation where an entire tape library goes down, you have continued availability of your data from the other libraries and can continue to store your data to other libraries.

Dynamic Library Pooling is flexible and scalable enough to support directing every data copy to one or more tape libraries on a rotating basis. Do the following to configure DLP on your StorNext system so that copy 1 data is directed to Library 1, Library 2 and Library 3 on a rotating basis. Additionally, copy 2 data is directed to Library 4, Library 5 and Library 6 on a rotating basis.

Note: The procedure below is just one example. Other configurations are supported.

  1. Install StorNext.
    1. Complete all configuration steps (including tape libraries and policy classes).
    2. Access the StorNext GUI.

  2. On the Tools menu, click Storage Manager, and then click Drive Pools.

  3. Define a drive pool for each tape library, and then configure each pool to contain all the drives in that library.

    For example:

    Library Number Drive Number(s) in Library Name of Pool Drive Number(s) in Pool
    1 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 pool1 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
    2 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 pool2 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
    3 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 pool3 11, 12 ,13, 14 ,15
    4 16, 17 ,18 ,19 ,20 pool4 16, 17 ,18 ,19 ,20
    5 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 pool5 21, 22, 23, 24, 25
    6 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 pool6 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

  4. Use a command line editor to open the /usr/adic/TSM/config/fs_sysparm_override file. Add the necessary DLP system parameters to define the DLP drive pool sets for each copy number.

    Note: You can define up to 8 DLP drive pool sets, one for each copy number.

    For example:

    DLP_COPY1_DRIVEPOOL_SET=pool1,pool2,pool3;

    DLP_COPY2_DRIVEPOOL_SET=pool4,pool5,pool6;

  5. Use the command line to set each tape library to unattended.

    For example:

    vsarchiveconfig -o n -u scsi -n Library1

    vsarchiveconfig -o n -u scsi -n Library2

    vsarchiveconfig -o n -u scsi -n Library3

    vsarchiveconfig -o n -u scsi -n Library4

    vsarchiveconfig -o n -u scsi -n Library5

    vsarchiveconfig -o n -u scsi -n Library6

  6. Use the command line to enable DLP for each policy class in which you want DLP supported.

    For example:

    fsmodclass policy1 -H y
  7. Using the StorNext GUI, cycle the Storage Manager.
    1. On the Tools menu, click System Control.
    2. In the Storage Manager section, click Stop. Your are prompted to confirm if you want to stop the Storage Manager. Click Yes, and then click OK after the confirmation dialog appears.
    3. In the Storage Manager section, click Start, and then click OK after the confirmation dialog appears.

After you perform the DLP configuration, as files come into the system, they are stored in clusters per the policy class settings. Each cluster is stored to the next drive pool defined in the DLP drive pool rotation.

For example:

  • A user creates 9000 files.
  • StorNext launches a store policy.
  • StorNext groups the files into three clusters to be stored. Each cluster contains 3000 files.
  • The first set of 3000 files are stored as follows:
    • Copy 1 of the files are stored using pool1 (Library 1 - Drive 1).
    • Copy 2 of the files are stored using pool4 (Library 4 - Drive 16).
  • The second set of 3000 files are stored as follows:
    • Copy 1 of the files are stored using pool2 (Library 2 - Drive 6).
    • Copy 2 of the files are stored using pool5 (Library 5 - Drive 21).
  • The third set of 3000 files are stored as follows:
    • Copy 1 of the files are stored using pool3 (Library 3 - Drive 11).
    • Copy 2 of the files are stored using pool6 (Library 6 - Drive 26).

Below is a list of known caveats and special notes associated with the DLP feature.

  • As noted in DLP Configuration, you must execute some configuration using the command line.
  • You cannot configure a policy class with a class-specific DLP drive pool set. The configured DLP drive pool sets apply universally to all policy classes for which DLP has been enabled.
  • DLP drive pool sets apply only to policy classes in which DLP has been enabled.
  • DLP drive pool sets apply only to store operations (not retrieve operations).
  • DLP drive pool sets do not apply to the fsfilecopy or fsmedcopy commands.
  • If you update any DLP drive pool set, you must cycle the Storage Manager to pick up the changes.
  • Under DLP, each version of a particular file may be stored to a different library. This might occur if you configure multiple drive pools representing multiple tape libraries for a particular data copy.
  • If you configure any store pools for a policy class, then the store pools are not used when DLP is enabled on that class.

  • A tape mount request from a vault typically results in an admin request to move the media to the tape library when the tape library itself is in attended mode. In the case of an unattended tape library, the tape mount request from a vault fails with an admin alert stating that no drives are available for mount. Interoperability between a DLP tape library and a vault is not supported.

  • DLP is more advantageous when more libraries are used. Data is more protected when the data is spread across multiple libraries. Quantum recommends a minimum of three libraries:
    • Two libraries for Copy 1.
    • One library for Copy 2.
  • Quantum recommends that you restrict each DLP drive pool to a single library.
  • If you have multiple DLP drive pools within the same library, this configuration does not add any advantage over normal StorNext operations.