topic Storage Performance Questions in ONTAP Discussions

Storage Performance Questions

defrogger1 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 04:08:51 GMT

Hello, Took over a small NetApp Env. We have two FAS3240's running in 7-mode. We are running version 8.2.3. We have about 6 Shelves of disks, a mixture of 15k, 10k, and 7.2k SAS.

We are strictly using it for our Vmware 5.5 Environment running about 100 Server VM's at the moment.

We are not using Snapshots or any other technologies

We have not had any performanace complaints as of yet. So everything is running smoothly. But one of the concerns is Space. The cost of adding more shelves is becoming a factor so we are in the process of rediesigning things around to squeeze more space out of system.

To do this we are redesigning our Volumes and LUNs so that we can start Overcommitting on space. We are doing this by Thin provisioning our Volume and Luns, and then running Dedupe on the Volumes.

Currently ive only been doing this on one of our 7.2k Shelves. Seems to be working fine.

I know by adding Thin Provisioning and Dedeupe we are adding overhead and will take a small performance hit by doing this.

I guess my question is, is there a rule of thumb to how many Volumes can be Thin Provisioned and Deduped before performance becomes an issue? I realize thats a general question as some questions will be, what are you running on your VM's and such. We have a mixture of small database servers, Web Servers, and allot of File Servers. Most of the Database servers are on the 15k and 10k Storage.

Another question I guess would be, how do i monitor performance with Netapp to try and prevent performance before it gets to be a problem. I know that OnCommand System Manager has realtime performance but that only shows things in realtime. I have something called Netapp Oncommand Console, is this what i should be using and what are some common things to look at.

Im going to start looking more into this but thought ide ask the community first.

Thanks for any input on this

Re: Storage Performance Questions

ekashpureff — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 20:03:06 GMT

Defrogger -

There isn't a performance hit with thin provisioning.

The concern would be to do it with caution not to run out of space.

The performance concern with dedupe is usualy when doing the initial run on a volume.

I advise to do it on off-hours, and only on one volume at a time.

The tool I rcommend for performance monitoring is OnCommand Unified Manager.

You may want to watch the recorded NetApp webinar I did for ITLS and FastLane Education on 'Clustered Data ONTAP Performance'.

Much of it applies to 7-Mode environs as well as Cluster Mode.

It can be found at: http://www.fastlaneus.com/webinars

I hope this response has been helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff, Sr.
Independent NetApp Consultant http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff
Senior NetApp Instructor, IT Learning Solutions http://sg.itls.asia/netapp
(P.S. I appreciate 'kudos' on any helpful posts.)

Re: Storage Performance Questions

defrogger1 — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 12:56:13 GMT

I didnt realize there wasnt a performance hit with thin provisioning. Thats great.

Ill see if we have Oncomannd Unified manager and if not if we can get it

Ill check out the webinar, thanks for that