Total thin written capacity in a VMAX

Interesting.. Can this be run on traditional STD devices also to figure out all the unused space on the array?

That would be huge for us.

Are you looking for allocated capacity in the pool???

Allocated capacity may be close to what you are looking for.

Thanks for you answer.

What I'm looking for is the total amount that has been used inside the thin device (not the whole allocated capacity the device has). You're right that allocated capacity is close (for a thick device it would be perfect), but what I'm looking for is what exactly the hosts are consuming from the thin device (not the they have been allocated...).

There is an inlines command (a7,nwbh) that will show the tracks on a device that have never been written by the host.  I don't think there is an external command that will report the written only.  You might be able to get someone from EMC to run the A7 command for you.

So you want to collect info on what was written to and deleted by host which led to allocated but un used space??

I know there is a way to reclaim that un used space in the VMAX using SMC. Right click on the device and under device configuration you will see "start allocate/free/reclaim" You might already know this.

If you noted what was allocated and free up space using this method you will get the number you want.

May be a long process but dont think there is a way to find out using a single command.

Yes, code that has the "never written by host flag" on the devices.  I'm pretty sure all VMAX has it, and I think even the latest 73 has it as well.

What I've found for thin is only on SMC: under the tag TDev Bind Info of the device there's a column that says: Total Written Cap. I think that's the one that I need; although it may not include the space written and then deleted by the host, but only the space that at some time has been used by the host (I haven't found any similar for STD devices -in this case, Quincy56's suggestion may be the only possible one-). The A7 command sounds very interesting, it's the same math but the other way around.

The tricky issue for me is how to come up with that Total Written Cap number for the whole array (without having to go checking device by device).

I'll contact EMC on the A7 command, maybe they can come up with a figure for the whole box.

Yes, command given by Amita will give you the tracks allocated and written details.  

-----------------------------------------------------------------------                      

                  Pool                    Pool           Total   

Sym        Total  Subs       Allocated         Written   

Dev         Tracks   (%)     Tracks   (%)     Tracks   (%)  Status  

-----------------------------------------------------------------------   

0BAC         32400     0        576     2        515     2  Bound  

0BB0         32400     0        576     2        515     2  Bound   

0BB4         32400     0        576     2        515     2  Bound

Yes. The key is in the option "-detail" that shows all the tdevs in the pool. With the option -MB (or -GB) and filtering by Bound devices, that's exactly what I was looking for. From here is very easy to do the math for the whole array.

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------

                     Pool          Pool             Total

Sym          Total  Subs        Allocated         Written

Dev            MBs   (%)        MBs   (%)        MBs   (%)  Status

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

0E30        325459     0     290996    89     299665    92  Bound

0E34        325459     0     291362    90     299665    92  Bound

0E38        325459     0     291170    89     299665    92  Bound

0E3C        325459     0     291179    89     299665    92  Bound

Thanks all for your contributions!

When I try to run reclaim space on a tdev, it finishes and still I dont see free space back in the pool

I created a test vol assigned it to a server and put data on it, then deleted it and started the reclaim.

SMC said it finished but I still see allocated capacity on that tdev,.

Am I missing something here?

White Paper: EMC Symmetrix VMAX Virtual Provisioning Space Reclamation and Application Considerations

Windows ? Did you run sdelete -c ?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443.aspx

So when we talk about Pool Allocated versus Total Written, are we seeing the discrepancy simply from zeros? 

Some of my devices have vast differences between the two numbers, and Reclaim does nothing.  These are VMDK's which are Lazy Zero'd per EMC recommendation.  Maybe I'm misunderstanding these values.  Any help would be appreciated.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

                     Pool          Pool             Total

Sym          Total  Subs        Allocated         Written

Dev            MBs   (%)        MBs   (%)        MBs   (%)  Status

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

01E0       1966080     6      54727     3     612319    31  Bound

01E8       1966080     6      18865     1     664475    34  Bound

01F0       1966080     6      19530     1     136570     7  Bound

I think that Total Written are the MBs used from that device in total (that is, comprising all the blocks the device has in this pool plus the blocks it may have in other pools); what you see as Pool Allocated are the MBs the device has in this particular pool.

So, in your case, I think it just means that those three devices have a lot of blocks in other pools as well.