HP 3PAR Operating System Software - Manual (Page 48)

Virtual copies are created using copy-on-write techniques, which are available only with the HP
3PAR Virtual Copy Software license. Thousands of snapshots of each virtual volume can be created,
up to the amount of storage space available. Depending on your system configuration, you can
make up to 500 virtual copies of a base volume.
To reduce the number of management tasks around physical copies, you can:
•
Create a consistent group of virtual copies from a list of virtual volumes.
•
Group virtual copies into autonomic groups that are managed as one virtual copy.
NOTE: Virtual copies are consistent at the virtual volume level, but not at the host filesystem or
application level. In other words, virtual copies preserve only the data that was written on the
source virtual volume before the virtual copy is created. Virtual copies do not preserve the data
that is resident within the application or files ystem buffers and is not flushed to disk before the
virtual copy is created.
48 Virtual Volumes