Volume

The volume is the highest level in the NetWare^® file system. It is a logical entity that consists of a fixed amount of physical space on one or more hard disks. (A CD-ROM can also be mounted as a volume. See Mounting a CD as a Volume.)

A NetWare server is divided into one or more volumes. The first network volume is named SYS: and is created during NetWare installation. Using NWCONFIG, you can create a new volume on any hard disk that has a NetWare partition. A NetWare server supports up to 64 volumes. (See Creating a Volume.)

NOTE: NetWare also allows you to create Novell^® Storage Services^TM (NSS) volumes along with traditional NetWare volumes. For information on this new file system and its advantages, see Novell Storage Services (NSS).

NetWare volumes are subdivided in two ways:

Physically. Volumes are divided into volume segments; different segments of a volume can be stored on one or more hard disks. For information about volume segments, see Understanding Volume Segments.
Logically. Volumes are divided into directories containing files or subdirectories by network supervisors and users who have the appropriate rights.

The file system is analogous to an office filing system, as illustrated in the following figure.

Figure 1
Volumes, Directories, and Files

Directories appear at the volume level. Storing files at this level is possible, but not recommended for security reasons because granting rights to files at the root of the volume would necessitate granting rights to the entire volume.

When a volume is used as part of a directory path, either in NetWare documentation or on the screen (for example, when running the MAP command), the volume name is followed by a colon (:), as in SYS:PUBLIC.

Understanding Mounting a Volume

When you boot the NetWare server, each volume is mounted, meaning that

The volume becomes visible to the operating system
The volume's FAT is loaded into memory
Each file block of data takes up one entry in the FAT.

Because of this, volumes with a smaller block size require more server memory to mount and manage.

However, if most of your files are small, a large block size wastes disk space.
The volume's DET is loaded into memory

If a volume fails to mount, it might be because you have run out of RAM. This is because the FAT takes up cache buffers. (See Mounting and Dismounting a Volume.)

NOTE: The new file system, Novell Storage Services (NSS), mounts volumes more quickly and can mount any size volume with 1 MB of memory. NSS volumes can be used along with traditional NetWare volumes. For information about NSS and its advantages, see Novell Storage Services (NSS).

Volume Objects in NDS

In NDS^®, each volume is also a Volume object. Volume objects are leaf objects that represent a physical volume on the network.

When you create a volume with the NWCONFIG utility, NWCONFIG puts a Volume object in the same context as the NetWare server within the NDS tree. By default, NWCONFIG names the Volume object servername_volumeobject.

You can change the context of Volume objects with NetWare Administrator.

If you rename a volume, change the volume name on the server using the NWCONFIG utility, and change the volume object's name in the NDS using NetWare Administrator.

In the Volume object's properties, you can store information about which NetWare server the physical volume is located on and the volume name recorded when the volume was initialized at the server (for example, SYS:).

You can also store information such as the volume's owner, space use restrictions for users, or a description of its use.

You can also view statistical information on disk space availability, block size, directory entries, name space support, etc.

Understanding Volume Segments

A volume segment is a physical division of a volume. Different segments of a volume can be stored on one or more hard disks, allowing you to create large volumes.

A single NetWare partition can only contain eight traditional NetWare volumes. You can create up to four NetWare partitions per drive (three if the device also has a DOS partition). Each of these NetWare partitions can only contain eight volume segments.

By placing segments of the same volume on multiple hard disks, different parts of the same volume can be read from or written to simultaneously, speeding up disk input and output. (See Enhancing Disk Response Time With Spanning.)

However, when you spread segments of a volume over several disks, you should protect the volumes against disk failure by mirroring; otherwise, if a single disk fails, one or more entire volumes shut down. (See Protecting Data: Disk Mirroring and Duplexing.)

You can add segments to a volume (with NWCONFIG.NLM), but removing a segment from a volume destroys the entire volume. (See Changing Volume Size.)

A volume's size can be increased by adding another hard disk to the NetWare server, by setting up a NetWare partition on the disk, or by adding a new NetWare partition to the existing volume as one or more new volume segments.