For file devclass, I generally don't worry about maximum volumes because I don't set the volumes up as scratch, I predefine them. Just something else that can cause issues for the customer, and reports of other people seeing the coming and going of scratch file volumes causing fragmentation in the filesystem. Better to define the volumes same as a random DISK pool.
For mountlimit, it's just the maximum number of client processes you expect to be writing to that drive at once. Or set to 999, no reason to restrict it. For maxcapacity, it just has to be larger than the largest container volume you plan to create in that pool. If you have no plans for dedup, you have no REQUIREment for the file devclass. And what I HATE about the file devclass, is that you don't get pool failover. If the pool fills up before you can migrate out, your backups fail, rather than waiting for a tape from the NEXTSTGPOOL. If the data is going to migrate off to another pool, so the disk pool gets emptied frequently anyway, what benefit to having a filepool? And if it isn't emptied every day, you will have to run reclamation on it. So when it's just a "buffer" diskpool, I prefer to use DISK rather than FILE. -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU] On Behalf Of Zoltan Forray Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2013 11:34 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] DISK vs FILE DevClass We are in a transition of our SAN storage from one EMC box to another. Since this requires my relocating 18TB of TSM server storage, I thought I would take this opportunity to revisit FILE devclass vs DISK, which we are using now. I have been reading through the Linux Server Admin Guide on the "pro's and con's" of both devclasses. Still not sure if it would be better to go with FILE. Here is some info on what this server does,. For the server that would be using this storage, the sole backups are Lotus Notes/Domino servers, so the backup data profile is not your usual data mix (largely Notes TDP). No dedupe and no plans to dedupe. No active storage and no need for it. 4-5TB daily with spikes to 15TB on weekends - 95%+ is TDP When creating/updating the FILE devclass, how do I calculate/guesstimate the values for MOUNTLIMIT and MAXIMUM CAPACITY as well as the MAXIMUM VOLUMES? Unfortunately, the storage they assigned to me on the VNX5700 is broken up into 8-pieces/luns, varying from 2.2TB to 2.4TB, each. Looking for some feedback on which way we should go and why one is preferable than the other. -- *Zoltan Forray* TSM Software & Hardware Administrator Virginia Commonwealth University UCC/Office of Technology Services zfor...@vcu.edu - 804-828-4807 Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html