topic Re: space reclamation in ONTAP Discussions

space reclamation

General — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 12:18:18 GMT

Hello All,

I'm new to NetApp so I'm asking this question. I have a storage cluster runnin 8.3P1. I need to run space reclaim on the entire cluster to attempt to reclaim space.

I can barely find any information on the process, much less the ACTUALLY commands to run the reclaim. Can is be done only by volume? Can it be ran by an aggregate level? Can you run it on all volumes at once?

No matter the answer, what is the actual command to run the reclaim??

Thanks in advance!

Re: space reclamation

Trubida — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 21:19:17 GMT

Space reclimation is done per LUN. In order to reclaim the space you will need to make sure snapdrive is installed on the host and then run the reclimation process from snapdrive.

Re: space reclamation

General — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 01:19:28 GMT

I'm not using Snap drive. The clients are ESXI servers and I would assume NetApp requires VAAI be installed to perform and uNMAP from ESXI?

Other vendors require that, as the storagr won't know what the client is requesting or wanting to happening.

Re: space reclamation

Trubida — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 01:35:50 GMT

You are correct, with ESXi there is no snapdrive. If you have ESXi 6.5 or newer you can enable space alloction on on the LUN. Follow the link below and it will show you have to enable it. One thing the documentation calls out is taking the LUN offline before enabling space allocation. I've change multiple LUNS in the past whithout taking them offline, do so at your own risk.

https://kb.netapp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1009035

Re: space reclamation

General — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 01:43:31 GMT

It seems that link doesn't have a "solution" and therefor there is no information on how to enable reclamation.

Re: space reclamation

Trubida — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 01:55:52 GMT

When you open the link, go to the top right and login. Once you login you can either go back or click on the recently opened link. Here's a snipit from the link.

Re: space reclamation

TMACMD — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 10:45:44 GMT

Space Reclamation only applies to FC/iSCSI LUNs. If you are using NFS, then it is always done anyway automatically.

For more info on VAAI, please see: https://kb.netapp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/1001100

Re: space reclamation

General — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:01:43 GMT

Thanks much for the help!

Re: space reclamation

General — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 17:39:05 GMT

One last question. I see the spce-alloc can onlt be ran with the LUN offline? If so, that really sucks.

Re: space reclamation

Trubida — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 17:43:15 GMT

I've ran this on LUNS that have been online multiple times. That being said I would test it on a few non-production LUNS first and verify.

Re: space reclamation

General — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 18:11:55 GMT

It worked on a non-production LUN. I'm going to try one PROD LUN now to see what happens.

Re: space reclamation

Trubida — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 18:25:59 GMT

Good to hear. One thing to keep in mind though, once it's enabled you don't get the free space back right away. If you need the space back right away you can kick-off a manual reclaim from the ESX host. That process is documented here.

https://www.stephenwagner.com/2017/02/07/vmfs-unmap-command-vsphere-6-5-with-vmfs-6-auto/

Re: space reclamation

General — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 20:51:28 GMT

Even for VMFS6, we stilll need to have space allocation enabled on the NetApp?