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Service levels on the PowerMax provide a more advanced way to ensure that performance requirements are met for particular applications. For some customers, all applications are of equal importance and using service levels may be unnecessary. The best course of action is to use the Optimized mode. This mode allows the PowerMax to provide the best possible response for all devices. For other customers, applications are tiered by design. Using service levels meets that need perfectly. Optimized is still available even if other service levels are used. Optimized I/Os are not throttled in deference to any service level. If using service levels to ensure performance for particular applications, it might be beneficial to place applications without any requirement in a Bronze service level. Those storage groups might be throttled to ensure performance for the more important applications.
In general Dell Technologies recommends using either Optimized for the entire array or service levels, but not both, for the above reasons.