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Deciding whether to use a disk pool or a volume group

You can create volumes using either a disk pool or a volume group. The best selection depends primarily on your key storage requirements, such as expected I/O workload, performance requirements, and data protection requirements.

If you have a highly sequential workload and need maximum system bandwidth and the ability to tune storage settings, choose a volume group.

If you have a highly random workload and need faster drive rebuilds, simplified storage administration, and thin provisioning, choose a Dynamic Disk Pool (DDP).

After you have made your decision, go to either Creating a disk pool or Creating a volume group to continue.

Use Case Volume Group Dynamic Disk Pool
Workload - random Good Better
Workload - sequential Better Good
Drive rebuild times Slower Faster
Performance (optimal mode)

Good

Best for large-block, sequential workloads

Good

Best for small-block, random workloads

Performance (drive rebuild mode)

Degraded.

Up to 40% drop in performance

Better
Multiple drive failure

Less data protection

Slow rebuilds, greater risk of data loss

Greater data protection

Faster, prioritized rebuilds

Adding drives

Slower

Requires Dynamic Capacity Expansion operation

Faster

Add to disk pool on the fly

Thin provisioning support No Yes
SSDs Yes Yes
Simplified administration

No

Allocate global hot spares, configure RAID

Yes

No hot spare or RAID settings to configure

Tunable performance Yes No