topic How big should a volume get + how do I break up volumes in ONTAP Discussions

How big should a volume get + how do I break up volumes

NetApp_Journeyman — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:15:12 GMT

Hi,

One of our volumes is currently 16.7TB. This strikes me as rather big and potentially dangerous down the line. I was wondering how we should go about breaking it up to a more manageable size without continually using NDMP

Re: How big should a volume get + how do I break up volumes

pedro_rocha — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 18:28:46 GMT

Hi,

What application is using the volumes?

16TB could be big, but compared to the size it could go beyond 100TB and PBs with FlexGroup Vols, it's nothing. So why are you so concerned about the size?

Regards,

Pedro

Re: How big should a volume get + how do I break up volumes

Ontapforrum — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 21:35:29 GMT

If the concern is regarding the 'backup' (NDMP) then 16TB single volume can be a pain (especially if its taking longer and longer to finish). NDMP in nature can be lengthy process especially if file-history is enabled and volume is packed with millions of small files in a deep directory structure. In such a situation, in order to reduce the NDMP backup time, it is suggestable to break the volume or rather move the dense directories to another volume (under qtrees). Having data distributed in qtrees will ensure the NDMP can use multi-streams for each qtree and also be able to use 'inode-file-map' for full/incremental back instead of examining each file by file.

Re: How big should a volume get + how do I break up volumes

NetApp_Journeyman — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 13:33:00 GMT

The volumes are being used by clients and backed up by NDMP

Re: How big should a volume get + how do I break up volumes

NetApp_Journeyman — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 13:34:18 GMT

Yes, the volumes are being used by clients and backed up by NDMP

How would I go about moving the volumes? I fear the process will be extremely lengthy due to the large size of the client directories

Re: How big should a volume get + how do I break up volumes

pedro_rocha — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 13:51:46 GMT

Then you should go with @Ontapforrum suggestion (qtrees).

You could use the same volume, but create qtrees and manually move data to the qtrees. It ou be a migration process as you would do to mode data to another place...