A volume is a virtual disk device that appears to applications, databases, and file systems like a physical disk partition without the physical limitations of a disk partition. A volume consists of one or more plexes, each holding a copy of the selected data in the volume. Due to its virtual nature, a volume is not restricted to a particular disk or a specific area of a disk. For example, a volume can span multiple disks and can be used to create a large file system.

Volumes consist of other virtual objects that can be manipulated to change the volume's configuration. Volumes and their virtual components are referred to as Volume Manager objects. You can manipulate Veritas Volume Manager objects in a variety of ways to optimize performance, provide redundancy of data, and perform backups or other administrative tasks on one or more physical disks without interrupting applications. As a result, data availability and disk subsystem throughput are improved.

You can change the configuration of a volume without causing disruption to databases or file systems that are using the volume. For example, you can mirror a volume on separate disks or move the volume to use different disk storage.