Physical processing moves data based on physical track images. Because data movement is carried out at the track level, only target devices with track sizes equal to those of the source device are supported. Physical processing operates on volumes, ranges of tracks, or data sets. For data sets, it relies only on volume information (in the VTOC and VVDS) for data set selection, and processes only that part of a data set residing on the specified input volumes.

DFSMSdss performs physical processing when the following conditions exist:

• You specify the FULL or TRACKS keyword with the COPY or DUMP command. This results in a physical volume or physical tracks operation.
  Attention: Take care when invoking the TRACKS keyword with the COPY and RESTORE commands. The TRACKS keyword should be used only for a data recovery operation. For example, you can use it to "repair" a bad track in the VTOC or a data set, or to retrieve data from a damaged data set. You cannot use it in place of a full-volume or a logical data set operation. Doing so could destroy a volume or impair data integrity.
• You specify the DATASET keyword on the COPY or DUMP command and input volumes with the PHYSINDDNAME or PHYSINDYNAM keyword. This produces a physical data set copy or physical data set dump.
• The RESTORE command is executed and the input volume is created by a physical dump operation.