There are two FS7300s (firmware 8.7.0.6) in hyperswap mode, with two types of disks: SCM and FCM. Two pools were created for each disk type.
The volumes (in hyperswap) in the SCM disk pool were configured to have Safeguarded Copy. With the creation of new volumes and Safeguarded Copy, the pool is filling up.
Once the Safeguarded Copy policy is configured for the volume group, the created snapshots reside in the same pool as the original volume.
My question is whether in a future firmware version it will be possible to modify the destination pool for snapshots with Safeguarded Copy, or is it possible (in some version) to modify the destination pool for the immutable copy via command, or to migrate the snapshot to another pool.
There is more free space in the FCM disk pool.

Hello Jorge,

I can't and won't speculate about future functions, but I'd like to comment on your scenario:

1) If you setup SafeGuarded Policies (aka SGC 1.0) then it sounds like your are using the function that was introduced in V8.4.2, and which in V8.5evolved into Volume Group Snapshots (aka SGC 2.0). Here you would be creating a Snapshot Policies, which defined a frequency, retention, ...and at the time of assigning such a policy to a volume group, you decide, if that scheduling will create regular volume group snapshots or Safeguarded copies, and that's what you should be looking at.
Note: With SGC 2.0 you don't have to create a child pool for storing your safeguarded copies anymore, they are stored with the parent volumes

2) Storing the safeguarded copies with the parent volumes, has the advantage, you once change data needs to be copied. If there is a second pool for the copies, one would likely assume, that this pool is independent from the pool where parent volumes are stored, and to be really completely independent, all data would have to be copied - not only the changed data - and this will typically mean you need more space.

For your scenario it would be interesting to check if combining the too pools into one EasyTier pool would theoretically achieve what you are looking for: having the parent volumes on SCM storage, because they are the ones with the most work load, and the copies on FCM storage. I haven't looked into any side effects of doing this, and I guess there could be trade offs, so if anyone has experience with an easytier pool where in which safeguarded copies are created that would be worth a post here.

Markus

There are two FS7300s (firmware 8.7.0.6) in hyperswap mode, with two types of disks: SCM and FCM. Two pools were created for each disk type.
The volumes (in hyperswap) in the SCM disk pool were configured to have Safeguarded Copy. With the creation of new volumes and Safeguarded Copy, the pool is filling up.
Once the Safeguarded Copy policy is configured for the volume group, the created snapshots reside in the same pool as the original volume.
My question is whether in a future firmware version it will be possible to modify the destination pool for snapshots with Safeguarded Copy, or is it possible (in some version) to modify the destination pool for the immutable copy via command, or to migrate the snapshot to another pool.
There is more free space in the FCM disk pool.

Hello Markus 

If a single pool were created with both disk types (FCM mdisk and SCM mdisk) and the EasyTier feature was enabled, I have the following two questions:
Since all the volumes are in a single pool, could the EasyTier feature be disabled on the volumes? and that these volumes work exclusively on the SCM mdisk, using the following commands:

chvdisk -easytier off "id or name" (disables EasyTier for that volume)

lsvdiskextent "id or name" (displays the number of extends on the volume)

migrateexts -vdisk "vdisk_id" -source "mdisk_id" -exts "extend_number" -target "mdisk_id" (migrates the volume to the SCM mdisk)

lsvdiskmember "vdisk_id" (verifies which mdisk has extends)

Would this modification cause any problems with HyperSwap volumes?

Hello Jorge,

I can't and won't speculate about future functions, but I'd like to comment on your scenario:

1) If you setup SafeGuarded Policies (aka SGC 1.0) then it sounds like your are using the function that was introduced in V8.4.2, and which in V8.5evolved into Volume Group Snapshots (aka SGC 2.0). Here you would be creating a Snapshot Policies, which defined a frequency, retention, ...and at the time of assigning such a policy to a volume group, you decide, if that scheduling will create regular volume group snapshots or Safeguarded copies, and that's what you should be looking at.
Note: With SGC 2.0 you don't have to create a child pool for storing your safeguarded copies anymore, they are stored with the parent volumes

2) Storing the safeguarded copies with the parent volumes, has the advantage, you once change data needs to be copied. If there is a second pool for the copies, one would likely assume, that this pool is independent from the pool where parent volumes are stored, and to be really completely independent, all data would have to be copied - not only the changed data - and this will typically mean you need more space.

For your scenario it would be interesting to check if combining the too pools into one EasyTier pool would theoretically achieve what you are looking for: having the parent volumes on SCM storage, because they are the ones with the most work load, and the copies on FCM storage. I haven't looked into any side effects of doing this, and I guess there could be trade offs, so if anyone has experience with an easytier pool where in which safeguarded copies are created that would be worth a post here.

Markus

There are two FS7300s (firmware 8.7.0.6) in hyperswap mode, with two types of disks: SCM and FCM. Two pools were created for each disk type.
The volumes (in hyperswap) in the SCM disk pool were configured to have Safeguarded Copy. With the creation of new volumes and Safeguarded Copy, the pool is filling up.
Once the Safeguarded Copy policy is configured for the volume group, the created snapshots reside in the same pool as the original volume.
My question is whether in a future firmware version it will be possible to modify the destination pool for snapshots with Safeguarded Copy, or is it possible (in some version) to modify the destination pool for the immutable copy via command, or to migrate the snapshot to another pool.
There is more free space in the FCM disk pool.

Hello Markus 

If a single pool were created with both disk types (FCM mdisk and SCM mdisk) and the EasyTier feature was enabled, I have the following two questions:
Since all the volumes are in a single pool, could the EasyTier feature be disabled on the volumes? and that these volumes work exclusively on the SCM mdisk, using the following commands:

chvdisk -easytier off "id or name" (disables EasyTier for that volume)

lsvdiskextent "id or name" (displays the number of extends on the volume)

migrateexts -vdisk "vdisk_id" -source "mdisk_id" -exts "extend_number" -target "mdisk_id" (migrates the volume to the SCM mdisk)

lsvdiskmember "vdisk_id" (verifies which mdisk has extends)

Would this modification cause any problems with HyperSwap volumes?

------------------------------
Jorge Barriga

Original Message:
Sent: Fri August 29, 2025 03:52 AM
From: Markus Standau
Subject: Safeguarded Copy function

Hello Jorge,

I can't and won't speculate about future functions, but I'd like to comment on your scenario:

1) If you setup SafeGuarded Policies (aka SGC 1.0) then it sounds like your are using the function that was introduced in V8.4.2, and which in V8.5evolved into Volume Group Snapshots (aka SGC 2.0). Here you would be creating a Snapshot Policies, which defined a frequency, retention, ...and at the time of assigning such a policy to a volume group, you decide, if that scheduling will create regular volume group snapshots or Safeguarded copies, and that's what you should be looking at.
Note: With SGC 2.0 you don't have to create a child pool for storing your safeguarded copies anymore, they are stored with the parent volumes

2) Storing the safeguarded copies with the parent volumes, has the advantage, you once change data needs to be copied. If there is a second pool for the copies, one would likely assume, that this pool is independent from the pool where parent volumes are stored, and to be really completely independent, all data would have to be copied - not only the changed data - and this will typically mean you need more space.

For your scenario it would be interesting to check if combining the too pools into one EasyTier pool would theoretically achieve what you are looking for: having the parent volumes on SCM storage, because they are the ones with the most work load, and the copies on FCM storage. I haven't looked into any side effects of doing this, and I guess there could be trade offs, so if anyone has experience with an easytier pool where in which safeguarded copies are created that would be worth a post here.

Markus

------------------------------
Markus Standau
Offering Leader for FlashSystems and SVC
IBM
Walldorf

Original Message:
Sent: Thu August 28, 2025 02:28 PM
From: Jorge Barriga
Subject: Safeguarded Copy function

There are two FS7300s (firmware 8.7.0.6) in hyperswap mode, with two types of disks: SCM and FCM. Two pools were created for each disk type.
The volumes (in hyperswap) in the SCM disk pool were configured to have Safeguarded Copy. With the creation of new volumes and Safeguarded Copy, the pool is filling up.
Once the Safeguarded Copy policy is configured for the volume group, the created snapshots reside in the same pool as the original volume.
My question is whether in a future firmware version it will be possible to modify the destination pool for snapshots with Safeguarded Copy, or is it possible (in some version) to modify the destination pool for the immutable copy via command, or to migrate the snapshot to another pool.
There is more free space in the FCM disk pool.

------------------------------
Jorge Barriga
------------------------------

There are two FS7300s (firmware 8.7.0.6) in hyperswap mode, with two types of disks: SCM and FCM. Two pools were created for each disk type.
The volumes (in hyperswap) in the SCM disk pool were configured to have Safeguarded Copy. With the creation of new volumes and Safeguarded Copy, the pool is filling up.
Once the Safeguarded Copy policy is configured for the volume group, the created snapshots reside in the same pool as the original volume.
My question is whether in a future firmware version it will be possible to modify the destination pool for snapshots with Safeguarded Copy, or is it possible (in some version) to modify the destination pool for the immutable copy via command, or to migrate the snapshot to another pool.
There is more free space in the FCM disk pool.