How disk ownership works

Disk ownership determines which node owns a disk and what pool a disk is associated with. Understanding disk ownership enables you to maximize storage redundancy and manage your hot spares effectively.

Disk ownership can be hardware-based or software-based, depending on your storage system model.

• How software-based disk ownership works
  Software-based disk ownership is stored on the disk rather than determined by the topology of the storage system's physical connections. It gives you increased flexibility and control over disk use.
• How hardware-based disk ownership works
  If your storage system is configured to use hardware-based disk ownership, disk ownership is determined by your hardware configuration. You do not need to assign disk ownership.
• How disks are assigned to spare pools when SyncMirror is enabled
  All spare disks are in Pool0 unless the SyncMirror software is enabled. If SyncMirror is enabled on a hardware-based disk ownership storage system, all spare disks are divided into two pools, Pool0 and Pool1.
• Storage system models that support hardware-based disk ownership or both types
  Most storage system models support software-based disk ownership. A few only support hardware-based disk ownership, and a few others support both types.
• How you use the wildcard character with the disk command
  You can use the wildcard character ("*") when you use certain commands to manage disk ownership. However, you need to be sure you understand how Data ONTAP expands the wildcard character.