Deleting a volume

You can use the command-line interface (CLI) or the management GUI to delete a volume.

Use the rmvolume command or the management GUI to delete an existing volume and all mirrored copies. When you delete a HyperSwap volume, the active-active relationship and the change volumes that are associated with the volume are also deleted. In addition, all data on the volume is deleted. In the management GUI, select Volumes > Volumes and right-click the volume to delete and select Delete.

Warning: Data cannot be recovered from a deleted volume.

The extents that make up the volume are returned to the pool of free extents that are available on the pool. If any remote copy, FlashCopy or host mappings still exist for this volume, the delete fails. If the volume is currently mapped to hosts, use the -removehostmappings parameter to remove any host mappings to that volume. Similarly, you can use the -removercrelationships and the -removefcmaps parameters to delete any existing remote copy relationships or FlashCopy mappings when the volume is deleted.

The volume protection feature can be enabled to prevent a volume being deleted if it has received I/O within a defined time period.

To delete a basic volume using the command-line interface, complete this step:

Enter the following command to delete a volume and all existing host mappings:
```
rmvolume -removehostmappings myvol
```
where myvol is the volume name for the volume that you are deleting.

To remove a HyperSwap volume from the command-line interface, complete this step:

Enter the following command to delete a volume:
```
rmvolume highavailabilityvol
```
where highavailabilityvol is the volume name that you are deleting.