Module 10

Volume Types
 By the end of the module, you should be able to:

• Describe the difference between a Standard Thick Volume and a Thin Provisioned
• Demonstrate how to create a Thin Provisioned volume

• Describe how the SCSI UNMAP command works with a Dell EqualLogic Thin Volume

• Explain the difference between a normal Volume and a Cloned Volume and demonstrate how to create one

• Describe what a Template Volume is and how to create one

• Describe what a Thin Clone is and its relationship to a Template

• Demonstrate how to create a Thin Clone

• Identify the terms Minimum Volume Reserve, Volume Reserve In-use Warning Limit, Volume Reserve
Maximum In-use Space

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 Volume Types

Thin Provisioned
Volumes

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 Thin Provisioning

• A method of assigning virtual storage volumes to hosts and consuming

actual physical capacity “on demand”
• At creation time, only a fraction of the amount of the stated size of
the volume is actually reserved for use
• Allows for provisioning beyond pool’s free space capacity
• Consumption of Free Space occurs as the Thin Volume grows
• Risks of Over-provisioning
• If not actively managed, over-provisioning could result in volumes
going off-line due to volume’s growth demand being greater than
Free Space existing in pool
• Standard (Thick) Volumes can be converted to Thin Provisioned
volumes
• Thin Provisioned can be converted to Standard Volumes
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 About Thin Provisioned Volumes

• Why Use Thin Provisioned Volumes?

• Eliminate ‘idle’ spindles and reduce storage
costs until needed
• Reduce capital expenditure
• Increase cost efficiency, dollars spent on
hardware and the cost to supply power to run it
• Reduce administrators overhead with
provisioning activities
• Avoid server disruption for growth/expansion
activity

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 Thick Volume Provisioning & Thin Volume Provisioning

• Thick Volume reserves entire space & Snap

Reserve from Free Space
• VR and SR never change unless Volume
Properties are modified manually
• Thin Volume reserves the number of In-use
Pages + (10% of In-use) or the volume’s
prescribed minimum space (default of 10%)
• Snap Reserve remains a percentage of the in
use VR

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 Thin Provisioned Volume settings

• Unique Thin Provision Properties

• Minimum Volume Reserve (default is 10 %)
• The minimum amount of space that will be reserved from the
pool’s Free Space, regardless of data usage, 10%-100%
• In-Use Warning limit (default is 60 %)
• Trigger to create an event in the Event Log to warn of Thin
Volume Consumption.
• Can be set anywhere from Minimum Volume Reserve Value to
100 %
• Extremely important when space provisioned is greater than the
amount of Free Space that is available, (over-subscribing)
• Maximum In-use Space (default is 100 %)
• Usage amount trigger that will cause Group to take the volume
off-line
• Can be set anywhere from Minimum Volume Reserve Value to
100%
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 Volume Types

Volume Re-Thinning

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 Volume Re-Thinning

• Thin Volumes grow as data is written and new pages are reserved
& consumed
• A “Dirty Page” is one that has been written to but the data has
been deleted
• SCSI Block unmap operation commands
• Tells the SCSI device that the blocks are no longer used.
• Used by unmap aware OS
• Only for Thin Provisioned Volumes (Logical Block Provisioned)
• Dell EqualLogic Firmware version 6.0 and later support the
unmap operation commands on Thin Volumes
• Re-thinning reverts empty ‘dirty pages’ back to the pool’s
Free Space
• Command issued by the Operating System
• Automatically ‘re-thins’ Thin Volumes when supported natively
• Manual operation through HIT utility when not supported natively)

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 Re-Thin Thinning, Provisioned Volumes?

• When a Group uses Thin Volumes

• Helps prevent unnecessary over-subscription
• Increases usage efficiency for Group

• Allows Group to operate in a more integrated manner with hosts

• Dependent upon host to inform array when blocks are no longer needed/addressed by the file system

• Native OS Support begins with:

• Windows Server 2012
• RHEL 6 / CentOS6 and later using ext4 file systems with –o discard
• vSphere 5.0u1

• HIT Kit provides utilities to interpret T13 TRIM commands to T10 UNMAP commands
• Windows: \Program Files\EqualLogic\bin\EqlRethin.exe
• Linux: /usr/sbin/eqlvolume -rethin
• ASM: Rethin volumes using the ASM Application
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 Volume Types

Templates and Thin

Clones

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 Template and Thin Clone Properties

• Templates
• Created from a standard Thick or Thin Provisioned volume
• Volume converted to Thin Provisioned, Read/Only, offline
volume
• Shares pages with thin clone volumes
• Shared pages cannot be changed or deleted by Thin
Clones Volumes
• Thin Clones
• Cannot exist without a parent Template due to shared
page dependency
• Have the same properties as a Thin Provisioned Volume,
plus Shared Pages with Template statistics
• All pages are initially shared with Template
• When Thin Clones attempt to change or delete Shared
Pages, new pages are reserved for the specific Thin Clone
and data is written

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 How Templates & Thin Clones Work

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 Template & Thin Clone Operations

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 Creating a Template & Thin Clone

• Creating a Template
• Create a Volume (Thick/standard or Thin provisioned)
• Convert to Template
• GUI: Use the volume’s right-click or Activity Panel menu
• CLI: volume select <VOLUME_NAME> convert-to template
• Converted volume will be set offline and Read-Only access
• When converting a standard volume, it will be converted to
a Thin Volume.
• Creating a Thin Clone
• With Template selected, choose Create Thin Clone
from Activity Panel (or right-click menu)
• Can also be created by cloning a Thin Clone
• CLI: volume select <TEMPLATE_VOLUME> create-
thin-clone

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 Volume Types

Clone Volumes

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 Clone Volumes

• Dell EqualLogic clone is a bit-for-bit / page-for-page point-in-time copy of a source

Volume or Snapshot where a new and unique Volume Entry is created and all of the
source pages are copied to new pages entirely owned by the new Volume Entry
• It is neither a replica, nor a mirror.

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 Clone Usage Examples

• Reboot and restore

• Provisioning new computers
• Provisioning with a standard set of software so that a new user is ready to go straight away
with a complete application suite and does not have to waste time installing individual
applications

• Test and Development

• Create an image of software, i.e. database, applications, this allows you to test new
features or updates
• Create a clone to run tests or do development without impacting the production
environment

• Full system backup

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 Cloning a Volume

• A Volume, Snapshot or a Replica of a Volume can

be cloned
• Upon the creation of the Clone, the Clone points
to the same pages as the original source and are
temporarily shared (similar to a snapshot)
• Over time, all of the point-in-time pages are
eventually copied, priority given to the pages that
change on the source in a Copy on Write method
• Once the Clone has been created, there is no
continuing relationship with the original
volume/source.
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 Cloning A Volume

• GUI
• From the Volumes Tree, select the volume to be cloned
• Choose Clone Volume from the Activities Panel or right-click menu
• Same Volume Creation Wizard with volume size & sector size options disabled

• CLI
• volume select <VOLUME_NAME> clone <CLONED_VOLUME_NAME> [description
<String>] [snap-reserve <String>] [snap-warn <String>] [snap-depletion <volume-offline |
delete-oldest>] [iscsi-alias <String>] [unrestricted] [<read-write | read-only>] [<online |
offline>]

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 Volume Types

Module Review and Lab

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 End of Module Review

• In this module we have reviewed and discussed the following:

• The difference between a Standard Thick Volume and a Thin Provisioned Volume and how minimum, warning and
maximum thresholds impact the Thin Provisioned volume’s space consumption and usage
• How to create a Thin Provisioned volume
• How the SCSI UNMAP command works with a Dell EqualLogic Thin Volume
• Explained the difference between a normal Volume and a Cloned Volume and demonstrate how to create one
• Described what a Template Volume is, and how to create one
• Described what a Thin Clone is and its relationship to a Template
• Demonstrated how to create a Thin Clone
• Identified the terms Minimum Volume Reserve, Volume Reserve In-use Warning Limit, Volume Reserve Maximum In-
use Space

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 Volume Types Lab

• Please refer to the lab manual for instructions.

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