FlexClone volumes and LUNs

You can clone FlexVol volumes that contain LUNs and LUN clones.

Note: LUNs in this context refer to the LUNs that Data ONTAP serves to clients, not to the array LUNs used for storage on a storage array.

When you create a FlexClone volume, LUNs in the parent volume are present in the FlexClone volume but they are not mapped and they are offline. To bring the LUNs in the FlexClone volume online, you need to map them to initiator groups. When the LUNs in the parent volume are backed by Snapshot copies, the FlexClone volume also inherits the Snapshot copies.

If the parent volume contains LUN clones (LUNs created by using the lun clone command), the FlexClone volume inherits the LUN clones and their base Snapshot copies. In this case, the LUN clone's base Snapshot copy in the parent volume shares blocks with the base Snapshot copy in the FlexClone volume. You cannot delete the LUN clone's base Snapshot copy in the parent volume while the base Snapshot copy in the FlexClone volume still exists.

If the parent volume contains FlexClone files or FlexClone LUNs (LUNs created by using the clone start command), the FlexClone volume also contains FlexClone files and FlexClone LUNs, which share storage with the FlexClone files and FlexClone LUNs in the parent volume.