The ISMF ISPF dialogs provide a good way of displaying information about SMS,volumes data sets etc.

Like many tools – it is easy once you know how to use it.

Where is there free disk space?

Using the ISMF dialogs (as a storage administrator)

                  ISMF PRIMARY OPTION MENU - z/OS DFSMS 3.1       
Selection or Command ===>                                         
                                                                  
                                                                  
0  ISMF Profile              - Specify ISMF User Profile          
1  Data Set                  - Perform Functions Against Data Sets
2  Volume                    - Perform Functions Against Volumes  

Option 2 Volume –>, 1 for DASD

                          VOLUME SELECTION ENTRY PANEL              Page 1 of 3
 Command ===>                                                                  
                                                                               
 Select Source to Generate Volume List  . . 2  (1 - Saved list, 2 - New list)  
   1  Generate from a Saved List         Query Name To                         
        List Name  . . COLIN             Save or Retrieve                      
   2  Generate a New List from Criteria Below                                  
        Specify Source of the New List  . . 1  (1 - Physical, 2 - SMS)         
        Optionally Specify One or More:                                        
        Enter "/" to select option      Generate Exclusive list                
          Type of Volume List . . . 1          (1-Online,2-Not Online,3-Either)
          Volume Serial Number  . . USER*      (fully or partially specified)  
          Device Type . . . . . . .            (fully or partially specified)  
          Device Number . . . . . .            (fully specified)               
            To Device Number  . . .            (for range of devices)          
          Acquire Physical Data . . Y          (Y or N)                        
          Acquire Space Data  . . . Y          (Y or N)                        
          Storage Group Name  . . . *          (fully or partially specified)  
          CDS Name . . . . . . . 'ACTIVE'

Where Acquire Physical Data obtains

• Device type such as 3390-3
• Device number such as 0a94
• Shared DASD such as YES
• Use Attributes such as PRIV

and Acquire Space Data obtains and calculates

• Free space
• Free extents,
• % Free index status
• Allocated space
• Free DSCBs
• Fragmentation Index
• Free VIRs (VTOC Index Records)
• Largest extent
• Physical status

gave

                                                           VOLUME LIST           
Command ===>                                                  Scroll ===> HALF   
                                                        Entries 1-8 of 8         
Enter Line Operators below:                             Data Columns 3-8 of 45   
                                                                                 
     LINE       VOLUME FREE       %     ALLOC      FRAG   LARGEST    FREE        
     OPERATOR   SERIAL SPACE      FREE  SPACE      INDEX  EXTENT     EXTENTS     
    ---(1)----  -(2)-- ---(3)---  (4)-  ---(5)---  -(6)-  ---(7)---  --(8)--     
                USER00    81233K     1   8233268K    674      6308K      135
                USER02   100822K     4   2670678K    252     53953K       31
                USER03     5202K     0   2766298K    483      2213K        9
                USER04  1457936K    53   1313564K     49   1328284K       20
                USER05    78577K     3   2692923K     83     63802K        4
                USER06   289020K    10   2482480K    179    105581K       16
                USER07   500735K    18   2270765K     92    356142K       11
                USER08   953881K    34   1817619K     86    509478K        3
    ----------  ------ -----------  BOTTOM  OF  DATA  -----------  ------  ----

If you press PF1 for help, press “enter to continue” and select option 6 Data Column Descriptions it gives all of the columns names. They have a name and number.

Back in the data display, you can scroll sideways to display these field.

You can use the command view 3,23 to display just those fields, or view * to display all of the fields.

You can use view save name and view select name to save the current view configuration as name.

I could not find a way of displaying all of the attributes for a volume in a vertical list.

Sort

You can say sort 3 to sort by column 3 ascending, or just sort where you can specify the columns and ascending or descending.

The columns you can sort by depend on what are displayed via the view command.