Standard-provisioned volumes

A standard-provisioned volume completely uses storage at creation.

A volume's capacity can be considered in terms of its provisioned capacity and its real capacity. Provisioned capacity is the volume storage capacity that is available to a host. Real capacity is the storage capacity that is allocated to a volume from a pool. Standard-provisioned volumes are created with the real capacity equal to the provisioned capacity.

The extra metadata that describes the contents of thin-provisioned volumes is not required for standard-provisioned volumes. As a result, the I/O rates that are obtained from standard-provisioned volumes can be higher than the rates obtained from thin-provisioned volumes that are provisioned on the same MDisks.

By default, standard-provisioned volumes are automatically formatted by a background process after the volume is created. During this process, some system resources are used to make the volume available for immediate use and ensures the volume is clear of any prior data. The time taken to format is governed by the size of the volume and the mirror synchronization rate of the volume. Increasing the synchronization rate reduces the time taken to format the volume by using additional system resources. The progress and estimated completion time of each volume format process is reported by the system.

Each formatting process uses some system resources, so there is a limit on the number of volumes that can be formatted at the same time. In addition, some volume actions such as adding a volume copy, or moving, expanding, or shrinking the volume, are disabled until the system completes formatting the volume.

If it is not necessary for a standard-provisioned volume to be cleared of data when it is created, the formatting process can be skipped. Skipping formatting can also be useful if the volume will be the target of a Copy Services function because the Copy Services operation formats the volume.