Administrator Guide

Before you begin
A virtual disk copy fails all snapshot virtual disks that are associated with the target virtual disk, if any exist. If you select a source virtual
disk of a snapshot virtual disk, you must disable all of the snapshot virtual disks that are associated with the source virtual disk before you
can select it as a target virtual disk. Otherwise, the source virtual disk cannot be used as a target virtual disk.
A virtual disk copy overwrites data on the target virtual disk and automatically makes the target virtual disk read-only to hosts.
If eight virtual disk copies with a status of In Progress exist, any subsequent virtual disk copy has a status of Pending, which stays until one
of the eight virtual disk copies completes.
Virtual disk copy and modification operations
If a modification operation is running on a source virtual disk or a target virtual disk, and the virtual disk copy has a status of In Progress,
Pending, or Failed, the virtual disk copy does not take place. If a modification operation is running on a source virtual disk or a target virtual
disk after a virtual disk copy has been created, the modification operation must complete before the virtual disk copy can start. If a virtual
disk copy has a status of In Progress, any modification operation does not take place.
Create copy wizard
The Create Copy Wizard guides you through:
• Selecting a source virtual disk from a list of available virtual disks
• Selecting a target virtual disk from a list of available virtual disks
• Setting the copy priority for the virtual disk copy
When you have completed the wizard dialogs, the virtual disk copy starts, and data is read from the source virtual disk and written to the
target virtual disk.
Operation in Progress icons are displayed on the source virtual disk and the target virtual disk while the virtual disk copy has a status of In
Progress or Pending.
Failed virtual disk copy
A virtual disk copy can fail due to these conditions:
• A read error from the source virtual disk
• A write error to the target virtual disk
• A failure in the storage array that affects the source virtual disk or the target virtual disk
When the virtual disk copy fails, a critical event is logged in the Event Log, and a Needs Attention icon is displayed in the AMW. While a
virtual disk copy has this status, the host has read-only access to the source virtual disk. Read requests from and write requests to the
target virtual disk do not take place until the failure is corrected by using the Recovery Guru.
Preferred RAID controller module ownership
During a virtual disk copy, the same RAID controller module must own both the source virtual disk and the target virtual disk. If both virtual
disks do not have the same preferred RAID controller module when the virtual disk copy starts, the ownership of the target virtual disk is
automatically transferred to the preferred RAID controller module of the source virtual disk. When the virtual disk copy is completed or is
stopped, ownership of the target virtual disk is restored to its preferred RAID controller module. If ownership of the source virtual disk is
changed during the virtual disk copy, ownership of the target virtual disk is also changed.
Failed RAID controller module
You must manually change RAID controller module ownership to the alternate RAID controller module to allow the virtual disk copy to
complete under all of these conditions:
• A virtual disk copy has a status of In Progress
• The preferred RAID controller module of the source virtual disk fails
• The ownership transfer does not occur automatically in the failover
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Premium feature—virtual disk copy