The Dell Unity product line is a simple, easy-to-use, and intelligent storage system which helps meet the needs of IT professionals in large or small companies. The systems are designed with flash in mind and leverage the latest cloud-based data management, efficiency, rich data services, and mobility technologies. The Dell Unity product line comes in a variety of deployment models from purpose-built all-flash or hybrid configurations to converged infrastructure and even virtual storage appliances. To further increase the flexibility of configuration options, the dynamic pools feature was introduced.
Dynamic pools is a pool technology first introduced for all-flash systems in Dell UnityOS version 4.2 and later. In UnityOS version 5.2 and later, dynamic pools are supported on hybrid flash systems. Dynamic pools replaces the previous pool technology, now referred to as traditional pools, as the default pool type for all-flash systems in UnityOS version 4.2 and hybrid flash systems in UnityOS 5.2. Dynamic pools utilize advanced RAID techniques and distributed sparing to offer better storage utilization and more simplified planning than traditional pools. Dynamic pools provides a number of benefits over traditional pools, which are discussed throughout this document.
This document provides in-depth information about dynamic pools including the underlying architecture of and all hidden components of the pool structure. Also discussed are the configurations supported by dynamic pools, which outline the drives supported within a dynamic pool, the number of drives supported, and the RAID types and widths supported. Information on creating and managing dynamic pools is also provided, which can easily be achieved through Unisphere™, Unisphere CLI, and REST API. The interoperability of dynamic pools with other software features is also discussed.