VERITAS Volume Manager 3.1 Administrator's Guide

Recovery
Plex and Volume States
Chapter 8358
Plex and Volume States
The following sections describe plex and volume states.
Plex States
Plex states reflect whether or not plexes are complete and are consistent
copies (mirrors) of the volume contents. Volume Manager utilities
automatically maintain the plex state. However, if a volume should not
be written to because there are changes to that volume and if a plex is
associated with that volume, you can modify the state of the plex. For
example, if a disk with a particular plex located on it begins to fail, you
can temporarily disable that plex.
NOTE A plex does not have to be associated with a volume. A plex can be
created with the vxmake plex command and be attached to a volume
later.
Volume Manager utilities use plex states to:
indicate whether volume contents have been initialized to a known
state
determine if a plex contains a valid copy (mirror) of the volume
contents
track whether a plex was in active use at the time of a system failure
monitor operations on plexes
This section explains plex states in detail and is intended for
administrators who wish to have a detailed knowledge of plex states.
Plexes that are associated with a volume have one of the following states:
EMPTY
CLEAN
ACTIVE
STALE