The following types of dynamic disks are supported in a Windows environment. This list of dynamic disks assumes that the dynamic disks are created and configured with Windows Disk Administrator:
During the snapshot of any dynamic disk other than a simple volume, there is the potential for increased memory utilization on the protected server. This increase might result in the snapshot not completing. This exposure exists when there are many data changes while the snapshot is running.
Backup success is based on the amount of memory available and the I/O load for Copy-On-Write (COW) when the snapshot runs on the protected server. If the I/O activity causes available memory limits to be exceeded, a FastBack Client system is limited to no more than 2 GB virtual address space (32–bit support limitation), the process terminates. The termination of a snapshot does not affect production I/O, but it does affect the Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
This exposure does not exist on volumes that are mapped to a single LUN (for example, basic disks or simple dynamic disks).
You can also reduce the time that is required to complete a snapshot by using a SAN backup, instead of a LAN backup.
In addition, Continuous Data Protection is not supported for dynamic disks.
Volume restore and instant restore are only possible to basic disks and to simple volumes that are used in supported operating system environments. Restoring a volume to dynamic disk requires restoring the volume to a basic disk. After you restore the volume to a basic disk, convert the disk to dynamic disk. You cannot restore a volume directly to a dynamic disk.
Regular bare machine recovery disks can be converted to dynamic disks by completing the following steps:
If you remove one of the two disks in the software mirror, the remaining signature changes for the disk. If this result occurs, complete the following steps:
Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) does not natively support dynamic disks.
In the Veritas Cluster Server (VCS) environment, simple and spanned volumes are the only types of supported dynamic disks. The backup and restore considerations for dynamic disks apply in a VCS environment.
Veritas Storage Foundation for Windows provides a Cluster Option for MSCS. This option adds a cluster resource for dynamic disks to be used in an MSCS cluster. This configuration is not supported.
Dynamic disks that are created with Veritas Storage Foundation for Windows that are not in a cluster environment are not supported.