Storage Foundation Windows Mirrored volume sync up during volume creation

[Anbu]

Hi

I want to create mirrored volume without any sync up it should come as a empty or active volume .

Can we disable Mirrored volume sync up during volume creation which requires more time to initialize both the mirrors.
Is there any option available to avoid this syncup.

Let me know your comments

regards
Anbalagan

[Jay_Kim]

I'm pretty sure it's not possible as a mirrored volumes is basically just that. Mirrored block by block. So the initial sync has to take place during creation. There is no option to mirror later on or at a scheduled time. If you just need to create a "spacer" with the extra disk so that it doesn't get used accidently by others, it would be best to just create a non-formatted volume of the same size as a temporary volume to use up that space. Then at a later time, you can delete this temporary volume and then create a mirror which will initiate the sync at the time you want.

If you have some specific needs, let me know and maybe we can derive a better workaround / solution.

[Daniel_Schnack]

Just to add, in SFW 5.1, a new feature was introduced called "smart move". This new feature will only sync actual data and not the entire volume block-by-block as the older version used to. So if your existing source volume does not have a lot of data, the initial synchronization should not take a very long time. However, if there is a large amount of data, then it will obviously take time to synchronize.

[Nick_Goddard]

 When you create a mirror it does just that - it creates a mirror. The feature Smartmove which is mentioned in the last thread is the quickest wat to sync the plexs. Smartmove is an intelegent mechanism of just copying over the actual blocks used. Where as traditional mirroring would sync the white space as well. This cuts the initial sync time. (depending on the amount of used blocks on the primary plex) You can see the affect your self by turning off smartmove with the VEA and re-mirroing (by default you get it turned on).
Smartmove is a great tool when thinking of Thin Provisioning as well, becasue when you move data onto a TP array without Storage Foundation you won't get the benefit as there is no intellegence in the LVM native tools as it copies even the white space. Smartmove will only move the actually used blocks. We have teamed up with all vendors to write the API that hooks into TP Arrays.

But to go back to your question, why do you need to create a mirror by not have it sync'd?

[cclin]

When SmartMove is enabled in 5.1, the initial resynchornization of mirrored volume is also skipped.  So you will get what you want by upgrading to SFW 5.1 release.