Creating volumes for IBM i hosts

Use the Create Volumes for IBM i window to create fixed block (FB) volumes for IBM® i hosts. Select Provisioning type to create standard provisioned volumes that are balanced across pool or thin provisioned volumes.

About this task

The DS8000® Storage Management GUI calculates the maximum number of volumes allowed (if you specify the volume size) or the maximum volume size allowed (if you specify the number of volumes required), based on the maximum usable capacity in the pools. The GUI then automatically balances the volumes between the two pools.

The maximum capacity for an FB volume is 16 TiB.

1. Open the Create Volumes drop-down menu from the Volumes page.
2. Open the Create Volumes for IBM i window from Create Volumes drop-down menu.
3. Select New Volume Set.
4. Select the Pools for each processor node. You can choose from the available FB pools in each node.
5. Select the Host or Cluster that accesses data in the volumes.
6. Define the volumes Set in the LSS.
   1. Enter a Name prefix to identify the volumes.
   2. Enter the number of volumes (Quantity) to create. The DS8000 Storage Management GUI informs you if the number of volumes exceeds the addresses that are available.
   3. Select the volume Type to determine the capacity and level of protection.

      If you select the 050 – Variable, protected or 099 – Variable, unprotected volume types, you must also specify the Capacity of the volumes by entering the size and unit (such as GiB or blocks).

   4. Select the Provisioning type to determine how to provision and allocate the volumes:

      Standard

      The system fully allocates volumes with real extents when it creates the volumes.

      Thin Provisioning

      Thin provisioning, also known as extent space efficient (ESE) volumes, defines logical volume sizes that are larger than the usable capacity installed on the system. ESE allocates provisioned capacity on an as-needed basis as a result of host-write actions.

   5. Click Advanced to enter the 4-digit hexadecimal value of the address range for each processor node to contain volumes. The first 2-digit hexadecimal value is for the LSS range available from 00-FE, followed by the 2-digit hexadecimal values for the address range within the LSS available from 00-FE.
7. Click Save to save the volumes.
8. Click Create to create the volumes.