Veritas Volume Manager 4.1 Administrator's Guide (HP-UX 11i v3, February 2007)

Chapter 1, Understanding VERITAS Volume Manager

Volume Layouts in VxVM

The figure, “Example of a Striped-Mirror Layered Volume” on page 34, illustrates the

structure of a typical layered volume. It shows subdisks with two columns, built on

underlying volumes with each volume internally mirrored. The volume and striped plex

in the “Managed by User” area allow you to perform normal tasks in VxVM. User tasks

can be performed only on the top-level volume of a layered volume.

Underlying volumes in the “Managed by VxVM” area are used exclusively by VxVM and

are not designed for user manipulation. You cannot detach a layered volume or perform

any other operation on the underlying volumes by manipulating the internal structure.

You can perform all necessary operations in the “Managed by User” area that includes the

top-level volume and striped plex (for example, resizing the volume, changing the

column width, or adding a column).

System administrators can manipulate the layered volume structure for troubleshooting

or other operations (for example, to place data on specific disks). Layered volumes are

used by VxVM to perform the following tasks and operations:

◆ Creating striped-mirrors. (See “Creating a Striped-Mirror Volume” on page 215, and

the vxassist(1M) manual page.)

◆ Creating concatenated-mirrors. (See “Creating a Concatenated-Mirror Volume” on

page 209, and the vxassist(1M) manual page.)

◆ Online Relayout. (See “Online Relayout” on page 36, and the vxrelayout(1M) and

vxassist(1M) manual pages.)

◆ RAID-5 subdisk moves. (See the vxsd(1M) manual page.)

◆ Snapshots. (See “Administering Volume Snapshots” on page 261, and the

vxsnap(1M) and vxassist(1M) manual pages.)