Thin Provisioning

Thin provisioning allows you to present more logical storage to clients

than the physical storage which you actually have
Instead of allocating space upfront, storage space is dynamically
allocated to each volume or LUN as data is written
Traditional provisioning preallocates storage; thin provisioning
provides storage on demand.
This allows us to move from a Just In Case to a Just In Time model
when purchasing disks
Traditional Storage Allocation

Allocation Size 500 GB

Safety Net 400 GB

Request 200 GB
Traditional Storage Allocation

500 GB
WASTE
400 GB
Request 200 GB
Traditional Storage Allocation

500 GB
WASTE
400 GB
Request 200 GB
Traditional Storage Allocation

500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB

400 GB 400 GB 400 GB 400 GB 400 GB
200 GB 200 GB 200 GB 200 GB 200 GB

Server 1 Server 2 Server 3 Server 4 Server 5

500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB

400 GB 400 GB 400 GB 400 GB 400 GB
200 GB 200 GB 200 GB 200 GB 200 GB

Server 6 Server 7 Server 8 Server 9 Server 10

Thin Provisioning

Thin Provisioned
FlexVols
500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB
500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB

2 TB
Aggregate
How FlexVol Volumes Work
FlexVol FlexVol FlexVol
volume 1 volume 2 volume 3

vol1 vol2

vol3

Aggregate

NetApp Confidential ‐ Internal Use 7

Thin Provisioning

Thick Provisioned Thin Provisioned

FlexVols FlexVols
500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB
500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB 500 GB

2 TB
Aggregate
Thin Provisioning for LUNs

As well as for volumes, we can also enable thin provisioning for LUNs

Hosts manage the file system on their LUNs

As a result, the host and storage may report the used space differently
Thin Provisioning for LUNs

File 1 File 2

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Client writes 2 files to LUN

Both consume 25% of LUN space

Client reports 50% space used

Storage reports 50% space used
Thin Provisioning for LUNs

File 1 File 2 File 3

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Client writes third file to LUN

It consumes 25% of LUN space

Client reports 75% space used

Storage reports 75% space used
Thin Provisioning for LUNs

File 3

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Client deletes Files 1 and 2

Client reports 25% space used

Storage reports 75% space used
Thin Provisioning for LUNs

File 3 File 4

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Client writes fourth file to LUN

It consumes 25% of LUN space

Client reports 50% space used

Storage reports 100% space used
Space Reclamation

Most hosts will end up ‘using’ all of the space of the LUN
At this point it will be the same as if you thick provisioned it

To resolve this problem, NetApp has space reclamation technology

Client side software such as SnapDrive and SnapManager can free up
the blocks they are not using on the storage system, leading to space
savings from thin provisioning