IT Systems Engineering

Thin provisioning savings in a 3PAR SAN

I recently implemented a 3PAR SAN. After migrating 10-15 VMs onto it, I looked at the disk utilization. I was happy to see how good the thin provisioning in the 3PAR SAN’s operating system was working.

Summary:

  • Total space the Hyper-V servers “think” they have = 1600 GB
  • Total space the Hyper-V servers “think” they have used = 596 GB
  • Actual space the SAN has reserved for these LUNs =  403 GB

So that counts as a savings of around 193GB worth of real disk space (32%). Sweet, eh?)

Full details below.

We have three LUNS right now:

LUN# 1

As seen from SAN:

  • hyperv1p_vol1
  • Slow Chunklets
  • Virtual size = 400 GB
  • Thin Reserved = 124 GB

As seen from server:

  • Mapped as E: drive
  • Total space = 400 GB
  • Free space = 140 GB (35%)
  • Used space = 260 GB
  • Number of running VMs on this LUN = 3

LUN # 2

As seen from SAN:

  • hyperv2p_vol1
  • Fast Chunklets
  • Virtual size = 600 GB
  • Thin Reserved = 43 GB

As seen from server:

  • Mapped as F: drive
  • Total space = 600 GB
  • Free space = 547 GB (91%)
  • Used space = 53 GB
  • Number of running VMs on this LUN = 2

LUN # 3

As seen from SAN:

  • hyperv2p_vol2
  • Slow Chunklets
  • Virtual size = 600 GB
  • Thin Reserved = 236 GB

As seen from server:

  • Mapped as G: drive
  • Total space = 600 GB
  • Free space = 317 GB (53%)
  • Used space = 283 GB
  • Number of running VMs on this LUN = 9 (almost to the limit of 10)

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