Which volumes to use for the system storage pool?

This topic provides considerations for determining which volumes to assign to the system storage pool.

Because the system storage pool contains the system data and file metadata, it is important that the volumes you assign to it provide high reliability, availability, redundancy and performance, especially if the file system has update workload. Use volumes that have a large write cache to reduces transaction latency.

The system storage pool typically requires approximately 2% to 5% of the total storage capacity that SAN File System manages. As a rule of thumb, assign 2% to 5% of the total number of volumes in the user storage pools to the system storage pool. For example, if you have 100 volumes (assigned to user storage pools) over 48 spindles, you would plan for 5 system volumes over 6 spindles.

Remember to take into account the characteristics of the application workload when you estimate the size of the system storage pool. Your IBM® representative can help you assess your applications and determine the metadata workload.

These are additional considerations for assigning volumes to the system storage pool:

Parent topic: Planning the storage configuration

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