SANtricity applications include two types of mirroring — asynchronous and synchronous.

Asynchronous mirroring copies data volumes on demand or on a schedule, which minimizes or avoids downtime that might result from data corruption or loss. Asynchronous mirroring captures the state of the primary volume at a particular point in time and copies just the data that has changed since the last image capture. The primary site can be updated immediately and the secondary site can be updated as bandwidth allows. The information is cached and sent later, as network resources become available. This type of mirroring is ideal for periodic processes such as backup and archive.

Synchronous mirroring replicates data volumes in real time to ensure continuous availability. The purpose is to achieve a recovery point objective (RPO) of zero lost data by having a copy of important data available if a disaster happens on one of the two storage arrays. The copy is identical to production data at every moment because each time a write is done to the primary volume, a write is done to the secondary volume. The host does not receive an acknowledgment that the write was successful until the secondary volume is updated with the changes that were made on the primary volume. This type of mirroring is ideal for business continuity purposes such as disaster recovery.

The following table describes the main differences between the two types of mirroring.