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equallogic space
i am running out of space on my dell ps6000x SAN. i have a lot of volumes on my storage that i really do not need. i have upgraded to the latest firmware v6.0.2. i have heard horror stories that i cannot reclaim the space by deleting any volumes. i have 45 volumes in my SAN of which i only need less than 5. what do i have to do to reclaim the space that i need. here is how it looks like:
Total: 5.48TB(subscribed 7.98TB)
-Volume reserver:3.95TB(72%)
-Snapshot reserve: 1.41 TB(25%)
-Replication reserver: 0 MB
-Delegated: 0 MB
Free: 126 GB (2.2%)
i really need to create space in this environment and getting desperate. please help.
Rasmus Haslund1
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April 16th, 2013 06:00
Dear jamiemwanza,
If you delete a volume the space consumed/claimed by this volume will be released back into your storage pool as free space.
The problem is, if you are running fx VMware ESXi and create a new (thin) volume and start moving VMs from existing volume to the new volume then you will run out of space, because the space used by the VMs moved wont be released as free space on the existing volume until you delete it.
If you DELETE a volume then the space WILL be released.
Another option, depending on your requirements, could be to lower your snapshot reserves. Currently according to your data you have 1.41 TB for snapshot reserves, this could be entirely removed or just lowered for now.
Let me know if you have further questions.
Anonymous
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April 16th, 2013 09:00
Rasmus is entirely correct. Deleting a volume, will and has always returned the free space to the array. I think the confusion is that 6.0.x firmware has a "Recovery Bin" when you delete a volume that allows you time to undelete it.
Additionally, if you are running ESX v5.x and use Thin Provisioned volumes on the EQL array, you can reclaim space manually as files are deleted on the datastores.
Here's a link on how to do that:
kb.vmware.com/.../search.do
It creates a large file, called a "balloon" file, on the datastore, then deletes it and sends UNMAP commands to array. One side effect is that since this is a large write/delete the snapshot reserve will get quickly used up. So you could lose older snapshots.
NOTE: UNMAP only works on NON replicated volumes, that's both SYNC Rep and standard ASYNC replication.
Lastly, 6.0.4 has been released and is the recommended firmware version to run.
Regards,