Disk pools

Data ONTAP uses four disk pools to track disk drive states: the spares pool, the maintenance pool, the broken pool, and the pool of disks that are currently in use in an aggregate. To see all disks in all pools, you can use the aggr status -r command

The following list describes how Data ONTAP uses the disk pools.

Disks that are currently in use in an aggregate
This pool contains the disks that are currently being used in an aggregate, for data or parity. Disks that are being reconstructed and that are in offline status are shown with their aggregate.
Spares pool
The spares pool contains all hot spare disks. For system that are not using SnapMirror, the spares pool is always Pool0. Systems that are using SnapMirror have two spares pools: Pool0 and Pool1.
Note: In systems using software-based disk ownership, disks that have not yet been assigned to a system do not appear as spares.

To see what disks are in the spares pool, you can use the aggr status -s command
Maintenance pool
The maintenance pool contains the following types of disks:
- Disks put into the maintenance center by the administrator or by Data ONTAP
- Disks that have been, or are being sanitized.
- Recovering disks (these disks have shown poor response time and are being checked by Data ONTAP)
To see what disks are in the maintenance pool, you can use the aggr status -m command.

Broken pool
The broken pool contains disks that have failed, or that have been failed by Data ONTAP. You should replace these disks as soon as possible.

To see what disks are in the broken pool, you can use the aggr status -f command.

Parent topic: How Data ONTAP works with disks

Related concepts

How the maintenance center works

How disk sanitization works

How disk ownership works