15-2 Dell PowerVault 720N, 740N, and 760N System Administrator and Command Reference Guide
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Although you can copy data on the filer using client programs such as cpio or using
the filers dump and restore commands, the vol copy command set offers the
following benefits:
When a vol copy command reads and writes data, the filer does not traverse
directories on the filer. Data is copied block for block directly from the disks,
which means that the filer can finish the copying faster than it could with other
methods.
Using a vol copy command, the filer preserves the snapshot data of the
source volume. If, in the future, users might need to use snapshots that were
taken before data was copied from one volume to another, for example, if users
accidentally delete files and need to recover them, use a vol copy command
for migrating data.

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You want to copy data
from one filer to
another regularly to
ensure high data
availability.
After you copy the data, clients can switch to the
destination filer in the following scenarios:
When you shut down the source filer for soft-
ware or hardware upgrades.
If a network client process accidentally deletes
a large number of files on the source filer, cli-
ents can continue to have access to the files
when you are restoring the files to the source
filer.
If the source filer is not available for reasons
such as natural disasters, you can put the desti-
nation filer on-line to continue file service.
You want to migrate
data from one filer to
another.
The destination filer has more storage or is a model
that supports newer technology, such as FC-AL
disks.
You want to move a
volume from one set
of disks to another on
the same filer.
Splitting a volume.
Example: You can copy the vol0 volume to the vol1
volume and then delete duplicated files and directo-
ries in these volumes so that the original contents of
vol0 are split into two volumes.