VMAX – deleting a thin pool, its easy…

Here we will discuss the procedure to delete the thin pool. Thin pools will be containing DATA devices and will have TDEVs (Thin devices) bound on it. Let’s go through the procedure in detail.

For deleting a thin pool,

1. Ensure no thin devices (TDEVs) are bound to the pool.

2. All the TDATs should be in disabled state.

You can check the pool status by running the command,

symcfg -sid xxxx show -pool T_Pool_1 -thin -detail 

This will show the pool state and details including TDEVs bound and enabled TDATs. If there are any TDEVs bound to the pool, you  may either migrate the data to a different pool, or you can unbind the devices by running the command (if there are no data in it)

symconfigure -sid xxxx -cmd ” unbind AAAA:BBBB from pool T_Pool_1;” commit -v

*** NOTE : Unbinding the TDEVs will wipe out all data in it ***

where AAAA:BBBB are the TDEVs bound on the pool. This will unbind the devices from the pool, which usually takes some time depending on the device size.

Once this is done we can disable the TDATs from it. Use the below command for disabling the devices,

symconfigure -sid xxxx -cmd “disable dev AAAA:BBBB in pool T_Pool_1, type=thin;” commit -v 

Once disabling is done, the pool state becomes disabled, from enabled or rebalancing or whatever it was.

You may verify this by running the show -pool command.

Now we can remove the TDATs from pool before deleting the pool. The command will be,

symconfigure -sid xxxx -cmd “remove dev AAAA:BBBB from pool T_Pool_1, type=thin;” commit -v 

Now we are all set to delete the pool. Issuing the below command will do it for you.

symconfigure -sid xxxx -cmd “delete pool T_Pool_1, type=thin;” commit -v 

Deleted ?, you can verify it by running the list -pool or show -pool command.

symcfg -sid xxxx list -pool -thin -gb -detail

Yes, the pool T_Pool_1 is not there. So we are done..! You may refer to this post for expanding a thin pool.