Creating FlexVol volumes

About creating FlexVol volumes

When you create a FlexVol volume, you must provide the following information:

A name for the volume
The name of the containing aggregate
The size of the volume
The size of a FlexVol volume must be at least 20 MB. The maximum size is 16 TB, or what your storage system configuration can support.

In addition, you can provide the following optional values:

The language used for file names
The default language is the language of the root volume.
The space guarantee setting for the new volume
For more information, see Space guarantees.

Volume naming conventions

You choose the volume names. The names must follow these naming conventions:

Begin with either a letter or an underscore (_)
Contain only letters, digits, and underscores
Contain no more than 255 characters

Creating a FlexVol volume

To create a FlexVol volume, complete the following steps.

Step	Action
1	If you have not already done so, create one or more aggregates to contain the FlexVol volumes that you want to create. To view a list of the aggregates that you have already created, and the volumes that they contain, enter the following command: aggr status -v
2	At the system prompt, enter the following command: *vol create f_vol_name* [-l language_code] [-s {volume\|file\|none}] aggr_name size{k\|m\|g\|t}** f_vol_name is the name for the new FlexVol volume (without the /vol/ prefix). This name must be different from all other volume names on the storage system. language_code specifies a language other than that of the root volume. See Viewing the language list online. `-s {volume\|file\|none}` specifies the space guarantee setting that is enabled for the specified FlexVol volume. If no value is specified, the default value is `volume`. For more information, see Space guarantees. aggr_name is the name of the containing aggregate for this FlexVol volume. size {`k` \| `m` \| `g` \| `t`} specifies the volume size in kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, or terabytes. For example, you would enter `20m` to indicate twenty megabytes. If you do not specify a unit, size is taken as bytes and rounded up to the nearest multiple of 4 KB. Result The new volume is created and, if NFS is in use, an entry is added to the /etc/export file for the new volume. Example The following command creates a 200-MB volume called newvol, in the aggregate called aggr1, using the French character set. vol create newvol -l fr aggr1 200M
3	Enter the following command to verify that the volume exists as you specified: vol status f_vol_name f_vol_name is the name of the FlexVol volume whose existence you want to verify.
4	If you access the storage system using CIFS, update the share information for the new volume.
5	If you access the storage system using NFS, complete the following steps: Verify that the line added to the /etc/exports file for the new volume is correct for your security model. Add the appropriate mount point information to the /etc/fstab or /etc/vfstab file on clients that mount volumes from the storage system.

Parameters to accept or change after volume creation

After you create a volume, you can accept the defaults for CIFS oplocks and security style settings or you can change the values. You should decide what to do as soon as possible after creating the volume. If you change the parameters after files are in the volume, the files might become inaccessible to users because of conflicts between the old and new values. For example, UNIX files available under mixed security might not be available after you change to NTFS security.

CIFS oplocks setting

The CIFS oplocks setting determines whether the volume uses CIFS oplocks. The default is to use CIFS oplocks.

For more information about CIFS oplocks, see Changing the CIFS oplocks setting.

Security style

The security style determines whether the files in a volume use NTFS security, UNIX security, or both.

For more information about file security styles, see Understanding security styles.

When you have a new storage system, the default depends on what protocols you licensed, as shown in the following table.

Protocol licenses	Default volume security style
CIFS only	NTFS
NFS only	UNIX
CIFS and NFS	UNIX

When you change the configuration of a storage system from one protocol to another, the default security style for new volumes changes as shown in the following table.

From	To	Default for new volumes	Note
NTFS	Multiprotocol	UNIX	The security styles of volumes are not changed.
Multiprotocol	NTFS	NTFS	The security style of all volumes is changed to NTFS.