The Storage menu manages the storage pools. It displays the storage pool status and configures
the storage pool. This chapter describes the details of storage management operations.

Storage Pools #

Select the Storage menu and Pools item to manage the storage pools. In this menu, you can
create, modify, delete, or view the status of all pools.

Create a Pool #

1. Click the + icon and select the Pool or Dedup & Compression Pool option to open a wizard
   to create a pool. Follow the instructions in the wizard to complete the process.
2. Select a Pool Provisioning as Thick or Thin Provisioning. Enable Pool Encryption when 4.1.1. Create a Pool
   applying SED disks. Enable Auto Tiering when installing different type of disks.
3. Click the Select Disks to make up the storage pool. Depending on the number of disks
   selected, certain RAID types are available.
4. Select Block or File to create block or file volumes.
5. Select Normal to create general RAID usage volumes.
6. Then allocate the volume capacity.
7. Click the Apply button to confirm the settings. The system will automatically run the
   storage creation in the background

List and Configure Pools #

All pools are listed in the Pools pane. Click one of them to display the details. Click the icon
beside the pool name to list the drop-down options. The following options are available.

Rename

1. Click the Rename option to rename the pool.
2. Enter a new Pool Name. The maximum length of the pool name is 15 characters. Valid
   characters are [ A~Z | a~z | 0~9 | -_<> ].
3. Click the Apply button to rename.

Edit

1. Click the Edit option to change disk properties of the pool.
2. Click the radio button to Enable or Disable.

• Disk Write Cache: Enabling the disk write cache will improve write I/O performance, but there is a risk of losing data when power failure.
• Disk Read-ahead: When enabling the disk read-ahead, the system will preload data to the disk buffer based on previously retrieved data. This feature will efficiently improve the performance of the sequential data retrieved.
• Disk Command Queuing: When enabling the disk command queuing, the system will send multiple commands to a disk at once to improve performance.
• Disk Standby (Only visible for hybrid storage models): Check to enable the auto spin down function of disks. The disks will be spun down for power saving when they are idle for the period specified

3. After changing the disk properties, click the Apply button to take effect.

Change Preferred Controller

1. Click the Change Preferred Controller option to change the pool ownership to the other
   controller.
2. Click the Apply button to take effect.

Scrub

1. Click the Scrub option to regenerate parity for the pool.
2. Click the Apply button to proceed.

Activate / Deactivate

1. Click the Deactivate option to deactivate the pool. Afterwards, the disks can be moved to
   another system for disk roaming.
2. Click the Activate option to activate the pool.

Set Thin Provisioning Policy

1. Select a percentage for Write Upper Limits when the pool reaches the specified percentage
   of usage, the volume will become read-only
2. Click the Apply button to take effect.

Delete

1. Click the Delete option, and then pop up a confirmation dialog box.
2. Click the Confirm button to confirm and delete.

List and Configure Disk Groups #

Create a Disk Group

1. Click the + Create Diskgroup button to create a disk group. Follow the instructions in the
   wizard to complete the process.
2. Click the Select Disks to make up the storage pool. Depending on the number of disks
   selected, certain RAID types are available.
3. Click the Apply button to confirm the settings.

Delete Disk Groups

1. Check the disk group checkboxes that you want to delete.
2. Click the button, and then pop up a confirmation dialog box.
3. Click the Apply button to confirm and delete.

Disk Information

1. Click the Disk Info option to display the disk information in the disk group.
2. Click the Close button to close the window.

Edit

1. Click the Edit option to change the properties of the disk group.
2. Click the radio button to Enable or Disable.
   § High Latency Disk Warning: Enable the high latency disk warning to predict which disks
   are at risk.
3. Click the Apply button to take effect.

List and Configure Volumes #

Click the Volumes pane to list all volumes in the pool. There are two tabs corresponding to
Block Volume and File Volume. Click on one to list them. The following options are available.

Create Volumes

1. Click the + Create Volume button to create block or file volumes. Follow the instructions in
   the wizard to complete the process.
2. Select Block or File to create block or file volumes.
3. Select Normal to create general RAID usage volumes.
4. Then allocate the volume capacity.
5. Click the Apply button to confirm the settings.

Delete Volumes

1. Check the volume checkboxes that you want to delete.
2. Click the button, and then pop up a confirmation dialog box.
3. If the volumes already existed in the Shares, Hosts, or Protection, it will display the
   dialog asking you how to handle the items you would like to delete.
4. Click the Confirm button to confirm and delete.

Click the “settings” icon at the end of the volume to list the drop-down options. The following options
are available.

Edit

1. Click the Edit option to change the volume properties.
2. Volume advanced settings can be configured optionally.

• Background I/O Priority: The options are High, Medium, and Low. It will influence
  volume initialization, rebuild, and migration.
• Cache Mode: The options are Write Through and Write Back. Write back optimizes the
  system speed, but comes with the risk that the data may be inconsistent between
  cache and disks in a short time interval.
• Video Editing Mode: Click the radio button to Enable or Disable the video editing mode.
  It is optimized for video editing usage to get a more stable performance figure without
  high and low peaks, but slower on average.
• Read Ahead: Click the radio button to Enable or Disable the read ahead of the volume.
  The system will discern what data will be needed next based on what was just retrieved
  from disk and then preload this data into the disk’s buffer. This feature will improve
  performance when the data being retrieved is sequential.
• Use For (only for block volume): The options are Raid and Replication. The raid is for
  general RAID usage, and replication is for the target volume of a local clone or remote
  replication.

3. After changing the volume properties, click the Apply button to take effect.

Extend Volume

1. Click the Extend Volume option to extend the volume capacity.
2. Enter a new Capacity to be extended.
3. Click the Apply button to extend.

List and Configure CSI Volumes #

Click the CSI Volumes pane to list all CSI volumes in the pool. The following options are
available. For more information, see the CSI Driver and Kubernetes Integration Application Note
from QSAN website.

Delete Volumes

1. Check the volume checkboxes that you want to delete.
2. Click the “delete” button, and then pop up a confirmation dialog box.
3. Click the Confirm button to confirm and delete.