When you create a volume copy, be prepared to do the following:
A source volume can be any of the following volume types:
The target volume must have a capacity that is equal to or greater than the usable capacity of the source volume. A target volume must be one of the following:
Note: In order for a volume to be used as a target volume, its snapshots need to be either failed or disabled.
Caution: A volume copy will overwrite all data on the target volume and automatically make the target volume read-only to hosts. Ensure that you no longer need the data or have backed up the data on the target volume before starting a volume copy. After the volume copy process has finished, you can enable hosts to write to the target volume by changing the target volume's Read-Only attribute on the Volume Details page.
Because a target volume can have only one source volume, it can participate in one copy pair as a target. However, a target volume can also be a source volume for another volume copy, enabling you to make a volume copy of a volume copy.
During a volume copy, the storage array's resources may be diverted from processing input/output (I/O) activity to completing a volume copy, which may affect the storage array's overall performance.
Several factors contribute to the storage array's performance, including I/O activity, volume RAID level, volume configuration (number of drives and cache parameters), and volume type (volume snapshots may take more time to copy than standard volumes).
When you create a new volume copy, you will define the copy priority to determine how much controller processing time is allocated for the volume copy process and diverted from I/O activity.
There are five relative priority settings. The Highest priority rate supports the volume copy at the expense of I/O activity. The Lowest priority rate supports I/O activity at the expense of volume copy speed.
You can specify the copy priority before the volume copy process begins, while it is in progress, or after it has finished (in preparation for recopying the volume).