topic Re: flexclone management in ONTAP Discussions

flexclone management

FelixZhou — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:10:06 GMT

We are on Ontap 9.8P5, having flexclone volumes created from snapmirror target site. Now we have a need to increate the size of flexclone volumes. what we should do, increase the flexclone volume or increase parent volume instead? looks we can increase the flexclone volume alone, since it is a snapshot of parent volume, where is the space assign from?

Re: flexclone management

SpindleNinja — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 16:10:26 GMT

I'd just increase the clone. It'll just use the aggr for space. (is that what you mean by "space assign from?)

Re: flexclone management

FelixZhou — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 16:36:55 GMT

thanks. i thought the FlexClone as snapshot will always share the space with parent volume. how about new data to the FlexClone, will new space on aggr or the snapshot be used?

Re: flexclone management

SpindleNinja — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 16:49:47 GMT

Nothing is added to the snapshot as it's RO. A flexclone is more or less a full working flexvol and uses an aggr for it's data. The difference is it's using another volume as it's reference point.
Think of it like this.
When you first take a flexclone, there's not really any increase use of space as the clone is just pointing back to the source volume from its data. Once data is added xor changed the flexclone starts to use space, but it's only the difference. If and when you ever split the clone however, it will use the space of the original vol +- whatever has been changed during the course of time it was a clone.

Give this a look over if you have a minute -

https://community.netapp.com/t5/Tech-ONTAP-Articles/Back-to-Basics-FlexClone/ta-p/84874