Network server storage spaces

A network server storage space (NWSSTG) represents a virtual disk drive that the server uses. See Figure 13 and Figure 14 . Virtual disk drives can vary in size from 1 MB to 1000 GB each. Up to 64 virtual disk drives can be linked to a server, depending on the server configuration, so the storage capacity of an integrated server can range from several gigabytes to many terabytes. The virtual disk drives are first created as stand-alone objects and then linked to the integrated server by identifying the NWSD of the integrated server that uses them.

Each server will have at least 2 virtual disk drives that are automatically created by the INSWNTSVR command, but can also have user-defined virtual disk drives.

• The system drive (typically the C: drive) contains the Windows server operating system (such as Windows Server 2003).
• The install drive (typically the D: drive) contains a copy of the Windows server installation media as well as the portion of the i5/OS™ Integrated Server Support (product 5722-SS1 option 29) code that runs on the Windows server. The install drive is used during the Windows installation process and is also used every time the server is started to pass configuration information from i5/OS to the server.
• Additional user-defined drives are typically used for server applications and data.

The actual disk storage for the virtual disk drives is allocated from the i5/OS integrated file system (IFS). The virtual disk drives can be allocated from the default system disk pool (also known as the system auxiliary storage pool, or system ASP) or from a user defined disk pool or an independent disk pool (IASP).

See Manage storage for more information about virtual disk drives.

1. Since virtual disk drives are objects in the i5/OS IFS, an entire virtual disk drive image can be backed up and restored using the i5/OS Save (SAV) and Restore (RST) commands. Files on a virtual disk drive can be backed up individually from i5/OS using file level backup with the Network Client (QNTC) file system in the IFS or using a native Windows backup application. See Back up and recover integrated Windows servers for more information.
2. Even though storage spaces are allocated out of IFS, storage operations are not performed by IFS while the integrated server is varied on. This means that operations like journaling are not enabled.