Administrator Guide

Secure disk pools
You can create a secure disk pool from security capable physical disks. The physical disks in a secure disk pool become security enabled.
Read access from and write access to the physical disks is only available through a RAID controller module that is configured with the
correct security key.
CAUTION: Possible loss of data access – When a disk pool is secured, the only way to remove security is to delete disk
pool. Deleting the disk pool deletes all the data in the virtual disks that comprise the disk pool.
Whenever the power is turned off and turned on again, all the security-enabled physical disks change to Security Locked status. In this
status, the data is inaccessible until the correct security key is provided by a RAID controller module. You can view the Physical Disk
Security status of any disk pool in the storage array from the Disk Pool Properties dialog. The following status information is reported:
• Security Capable
• Secure
Table 14. Security properties status of disk pool
Security Capable – Yes Security Capable – No
Secure – Yes The disk pool is composed of all SED physical disks
and is in Secure status.
Not applicable. Only SED physical disks can be in Secure
status.
Secure – No The disk pool is composed of all SED physical disks
and is in Non-Secure status.
The disk pool is not entirely composed of SED physical
disks.
The Secure Physical Disks option is displayed in the Disk Pool menu. The Secure Physical Disks option is active if these conditions
are true:
• The selected storage array is not security enabled but is comprised entirely of security capable physical disks.
• The storage array contains no snapshot copy base virtual disks or snapshot repository virtual disks.
• The disk pool is in Optimal status.
• A security key is set up for the storage array.
The Secure Physical Disks option is inactive if the preceding conditions are not true. The Secure Physical Disks option is inactive with
a check mark to the left if the disk pool is already security enabled.
The Create a secure disk pool option is displayed in the Create Disk Pool - Disk Pool Name and Physical Disk Selection dialog. The
Create a secure disk pool option is active only when the following conditions are met:
• The Physical Disk Security feature is activated.
• A security key is installed in the storage array.
• At least one security capable physical disk is installed in the storage array.
• All the physical disks that you selected on the Hardware tab are security capable physical disks.
Changing capacity on existing thin virtual disks
If the amount of space used by the host for read/write operations (sometimes called consumed capacity) exceeds the amount of physical
capacity allocated on a standard virtual disk, the storage array cannot accommodate additional write requests until the physical capacity is
increased. However, on a thin virtual disk, MD Storage Manager can automatically expand physical capacity of a thin virtual disk. You can
also do it manually using Storage > Virtual Disk > Increase Repository Capacity. If you select the automatic expansion option, you
can also set a maximum expansion capacity. The maximum expansion capacity enables you to limit the automatic growth of a virtual disk
to an amount less than the defined virtual capacity.
NOTE:
Because less than full capacity is allocated when you create a thin virtual disk, insufficient free capacity may
exist when certain operations are performed, such as snapshot images and snapshot virtual disks. If this occurs, an alert
threshold warning is displayed.
Creating thin virtual disk from disk pool
NOTE: You can create thin virtual disks only from disk pools, not from disk groups.
1. In the AMW, select the Storage & Copy Services tab.
2. Select a Free Capacity node in a disk pool.
The thin virtual disks are listed under the Disk Pools node.
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Disk pools and disk pool virtual disks