If you need a temporary copy of your data that can be made quickly and without using a lot of disk space, you can create a FlexClone volume. FlexClone volumes save data space because all unchanged data blocks are shared between the FlexClone volume and its parent.
Before you begin
Ensure that you have the flex_clone license installed.
Step
- Enter the following command to clone the volume:vol clone create clone_name [-s {volume|file|none}] -b parent_name [parent_snap]
clone_name is the name of the FlexClone volume that you want to create.
-s {volume | file | none} specifies the space guarantee setting for the new FlexClone volume. If no value is specified, the FlexClone volume is given the same space guarantee setting as its parent.
parent_name is the name of the FlexVol volume that you intend to clone.
parent_snap is the name of the base Snapshot copy of the parent FlexVol volume. If no name is specified, Data ONTAP creates a base Snapshot copy with the name
clone_cl_name_prefix.id, where
cl_name_prefix is up to 16 characters of the name of the new FlexClone volume and
id is a unique digit identifier (for example 1, 2, and so on).
Note: The base Snapshot copy cannot be deleted as long as any clones based on that Snapshot copy exist.
Result
The FlexClone volume is created and, if NFS is in use, an entry is added to the /etc/exports file for every entry found for the parent volume.
The base Snapshot copy becomes a shared Snapshot copy between the FlexClone volume and its parent.
Example
To create a FlexClone volume named newclone from the parent FlexVol volume flexvol1, you would enter the following command:
vol clone create newclone -b flexvol1Note: The Snapshot copy created by Data ONTAP is named clone_newclone.1.
After you finish
You can verify the status of the new FlexClone volume by using the vol status -v command.
