Storage Pools - Directories

View capacity and access information for storage pool directories.

A container storage pool stores client data in file system directories on disk. To store the data, the server allocates space in the directories. The allocated space is called a container. When a container is full, a new container is dynamically allocated. In this way, directories can grow to use more file system space.

For directory-container pools, the directories define the storage pool size. For cloud-container pools, the directories define the size of a disk cache that is used to optimize data transfer to the cloud. For cloud-container storage pools, the data is only held temporarily on disk. After the data is transferred to the cloud, it is deleted from the directory cache.

Data that is sent to the storage pool is distributed across the available directories. This balanced distribution can improve I/O performance, but only if the directories map to different underlying physical disks.

The table shows the directories that are assigned to the container storage pool. Because the performance of a container storage pool depends on the being able to write to all the storage pool directories, the table shows whether a file system is running out of free space, and shows any directory access problems.

For more information about a directory, issue the QUERY STGPOOLDIRECTORY command.

The following action and information is available on the page:

+ Directories

Adds directories to the container storage pool.

Enter a fully-qualified path name that conforms to the syntax that is used by the server operating system. For example, enter c:\temp\dir1\ for Microsoft Windows or /tmp/dir1/ for UNIX.

Data that is written to a container pool is distributed across the directories. This distribution can improve I/O performance, but only if the storage pool directories map to different physical disks. Each additional physical disk that you identify can increase parallelism and improve I/O performance.

Container storage pools do not use device classes, so you must ensure that the disk devices have similar availability, storage, and performance characteristics.

Restriction: Because storage pool directories can grow to use more space on the file system, do not specify a directory that is on the same physical file system as the server database and logs.
Name
The directory name is either the fully qualified path name, or a path name relative to the IBM Spectrum Protect instance directory. The format depends on whether a full or relative path was specified when the storage pool directory was defined.
Status
The following states can be shown:
  • Normal status icon Normal: There is sufficient space in the file system, and the directory access mode is read/write.
  • Warning status icon Warning: Either the file system is running out of space, or the directory access mode is read-only. Hover over the warning icon Warning status icon to view more information about the specific warning.

    To ensure that the storage pool can continue creating containers to store data in the directory, refer to the File System Capacity column to verify that the file system has adequate free space.

    If the directory access mode is read-only, the storage pool cannot store data in the directory containers and cannot create new containers in the directory. To determine the access restriction, use the QUERY STGPOOLDIRECTORY command.

  • Critical status icon Critical: Either there is not enough available space in the file system, the directory access mode is unavailable or destroyed, or one or more containers in the directory were marked as damaged. Hover over the critical status icon to view more information about the specific error.

    Refer to the File System Capacity column to verify that the file system has adequate free space.

    To determine whether the directory access mode is unavailable or destroyed, use the QUERY STGPOOLDIRECTORY command. You can change the access mode by using the UPDATE STGPOOLDIRECTORY command.

    If containers in the storage pool are marked as damaged, audit the containers to make sure that they are accessible and have valid content. A server marks a container as damaged when it cannot open or write to the container. For example, if a server attempts to restore or retrieve data in a container storage pool, but cannot open the necessary container, the operation fails and the container is marked as damaged.

    A container that is marked as damaged might still be valid. The damaged state might indicate only that the server cannot access the container. For example, if server did not mount a particular file system, it cannot access any container in a container pool directory on that file system.

    If containers in a storage pool directory are marked as damaged, you can audit the containers to make sure that they have valid content. Check that the server can access the file system for the storage pool directory, and issue the AUDIT CONTAINER command.

    The AUDIT CONTAINER command validates the integrity of a container's data extents, by looking for inconsistencies between the container and database information. If there are no inconsistencies, the containers are no longer marked as damaged.

    If the AUDIT CONTAINER command does find a damaged extent, the server marks the data extent as damaged in the database. If the damaged data extent was replicated, you can repair the data extent by using the REPAIR STGPOOL command.

Status is determined by the monitoring thresholds that you define for the server. To modify the threshold settings, use the UPDATE STATUSTHRESHOLD command.
Containers
The number of containers in the storage pool directory. A new container is dynamically created in the directory when the current one is full. In this way, the directory continues to grow until the file system is full.

For cloud-container storage pools, containers are deleted from the directory after the container data is transferred to the cloud.

File System Capacity
The amount of used and free space on the file system. To ensure that IBM Spectrum Protect can continue creating containers to store data in the directory, verify that the file system has adequate free space.

For directory-container pools, the combined capacities of the file systems determine the overall storage pool capacity. For cloud-container pools, the combined capacities of the file systems determine only the size of a local cache that is used to optimize data transfer to the cloud. After the data is transferred to the cloud, it is deleted from the local cache. For this reason, a cloud-container pool typically does not need as much file system capacity as a directory container pool. However, if client backups are outpacing the transfer to the cloud, the local cache could fill up and client backups can fail.

If the file system is running out of space, expand the disk capacity or make space available on the disk. You can also add another directory to the container storage pool, so the storage pool performance is not degraded because there are fewer devices to which IBM Spectrum Protect can write.

To add another storage pool directory to the container storage pool, click + Directories.

For more information about using IBM Spectrum Protect commands, see the IBM Spectrum Protect documentation.