March 2013 Dell EqualLogic Configuration Guide v14.1 5-38
• Do not mix arrays with different drive technologies (SATA, SAS, SSD) within a single pool unless
they are running a unique RAID policy.
• Do not mix arrays with different controller speeds (1GbE, 10GbE) within a single pool unless
they are each running unique RAID policies.
5.2 Volumes
Volumes provide the storage allocation structure within an EqualLogic SAN. Volumes are seen on the
network as iSCSI targets by hosts and are presented to the user as disk drives once the iSCSI initiator
has been configured and authenticated to the volume. Only computers with an iSCSI initiator and the
correct access credentials can access a volume. Disk space for volumes is allocated from the target
storage pool’s free space.
Volumes are identified within the Group Manager with a unique volume name. The volume name is
created by the administrator during volume creation and can be configured with several additional
characteristics and capabilities. The following sections provide additional details.
5.2.1 Volume attributes
Volumes are created using the “create volume” function in Group Manager or through the Command
Line Interface (CLI). Each volume must have a unique name that is used by Group Manager to identify
and manage the volume. Volume names may be changed via Group Manager at any time. Volume
names must meet the following requirements:
• 1 to 64 alpha-numeric characters
• A-Z, a-z, 0-9, “.”, “-“, “:” are legal characters
Volumes are assigned a unique iSCSI Qualified Name (iqn) that consists of the following parts:
• “iqn” followed by a “.” (period)
• Year and Month of first full month that the naming authority was registered with standards
body. EqualLogic’s value is “2001-5” followed by a “.”
• The storage provider’s domain name in reverse order. For example: “com.equallogic”
• A colon (“:”)
• Vendor specified information to identify an iSCSI target or initiator as unique within the vendor
domain. For EqualLogic iSCSI targets, this part consists of a unique set of numbers and the
user assigned volume name (within Group Manager).
The following is an example of an iSCSI target name for a volume named db3:
iqn.2001-05.com.equallogic:7-8b0900-6d0000000-001ebbc5d80sf0k0-db3
Volumes are visible to iSCSI initiators through one or more of three mechanisms during volume
creation:
• iSCSI initiator IP address
• A host’s iSCSI iqn well-known name
• Mutual CHAP authenticated user identity
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