When you take a FlexVol volume offline, it releases its allocation of storage space in its containing aggregate. Other volumes in that aggregate might start using that space while the volume is offline. When this happens, you cannot bring the volume back online as you normally would.
If you attempt to bring a FlexVol volume online when there is insufficient free space in the aggregate to honor its space guarantees, the
vol online command fails. You can use the
-f option to force the volume to come online; however, the space guarantees for that volume are disabled. If you later make more space available to the aggregate, the space guarantees will be automatically re-enabled.
Attention: Attempts to write to a volume with its space guarantees disabled could fail due to insufficient available space. For this reason, in environments that are sensitive to that error (such as CIFS or LUNs), it is best to avoid forcing a volume online.
Note: FlexCache volumes cannot be brought online if there is insufficient space in the aggregate to fulfill their space guarantee.
