4 Storage pools This chapter describes how the IBM Storwize V5000 Gen2 manages physical storage  resources. All storage resources that are under IBM Storwize V5000 Gen2 control are  managed by using  storage pools . Storage pools dynamically allocate resources, maximize  productivity, and reduce costs.  Internal and external managed disks (MDisks), advanced internal storage, and storage pool  management are described in this chapter. For more information about external storage  controllers, see Chapter 11, “External storage virtualization” on page 607. Storage pools can be configured through the Initial Setup wizard when the system is first  installed, as described in Chapter 2, “Initial configuration” on page 39. They can also be  configured after the initial setup through the management GUI, which provides a set of  presets to help you configuring different Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) types. The recommended configuration presets configure all drives into RAID arrays based on drive  class and protect them with the correct number of spare drives. Alternatively, you can  configure the storage to your own requirements. Selections include the drive class, the  number of drives to configure, whether to configure spare drives, and optimization for  performance or capacity. This chapter includes the following topics: GLYPH<SM590000> 4.4, “Working with external storage controllers” on page 215 GLYPH<SM590000> 4.3, “Working with managed disks” on page 188 GLYPH<SM590000> 4.2, “Working with storage pools” on page 172 GLYPH<SM590000> 4.1, “Working with internal drives” on page 160 ' Copyright IBM Corp. 2 019. All rights reserved. 159