Additional Preparation Activities

Depending on the type of snapshots that you want to create, you may need to perform additional preparatory tasks.

When creating a full-sized instant snapshot, you can use one of the following two methods:

• Break off one or more spare plexes from the original volume to form a snapshot volume with the required redundancy. These plexes must be in the SNAPDONE state. (You can also break off named plexes of a volume that are in the ACTIVE state, but that method is not described here. For more information, see the "Administering Volume Snapshots" chapter in the VERITAS Volume Manager Administrator's Guide.)
• Use a separate empty volume that you have prepared in advance as described in Creating a Volume for Use as a Full-Sized Instant Snapshot.

When creating space-optimized instant snapshots that share a cache, you must set up the cache before creating the snapshots. See Creating a Shared Cache Object for details.

If a space-optimized instant snapshot uses a dedicate cache, this can also be set up when the snapshot is created. No additional preparation is required in this case.