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Decide where to provision new SMB storage capacity

Contributors

Before you create a new SMB volume or qtree, you must decide whether to place it in a new or existing SVM, and how much configuration the SVM requires. This decision determines your workflow.

Choices
  • If you want to provision a volume or qtree on a new SVM, or on an existing SVM that has SMB enabled but not configured, complete the steps in both “Configuring SMB access to an SVM” and “Adding storage capacity to an SMB-enabled SVM”.

    You might choose to create a new SVM if one of the following is true:

    • You are enabling SMB on a cluster for the first time.

    • You have existing SVMs in a cluster in which you do not want to enable SMB support.

    • You have one or more SMB-enabled SVMs in a cluster, and you want one of the following connections:

      • To a different Active Directory forest or workgroup.

      • To an SMB server in an isolated namespace (multi-tenancy scenario). You should also choose this option to provision storage on an existing SVM that has SMB enabled but not configured. This might be the case if you created the SVM for SAN access or if no protocols were enabled when the SVM was created.

    After enabling SMB on the SVM, proceed to provision a volume or qtree.

  • If you want to provision a volume or qtree on an existing SVM that is fully configured for SMB access, complete the steps in “Adding storage capacity to an SMB-enabled SVM”.