DRL uses a log-based recovery method to quickly resynchronize all the copies of a mirrored volume when a system is restarted following a crash. If DRL is not used and a system failure occurs, all mirrors of the volume must be restored to a consistent state by copying the full contents of the volume between its mirrors. This process can be lengthy and I/O intensive.

A log can be created when the volume is created or can be added later.

When a dirty region log is created, a log subdisk is added to the volume. Multiple logs can be associated with a single mirrored volume as a fault-tolerant measure. Depending on the number of logs configured, this may result in degraded performance.