Planning for Additional Storage Capacity (NetApp Specific) 10.7.01

Administrators are not only asked to assign storage resources but also to plan for both current and future storage requirements. Because under-purchasing and over-purchasing capacity will respectively result in downtimes and wasted storage, both situations must be prevented. Smooth storage administration can only be achieved if administrators can answer these questions:

• • When will aggregates be running out of capacity?
  • By how much the capacity of the aggregates must be extended to meet allocation requirements?
  • Are there enough unused disks in clusters to extend the capacity of the existing aggregates?

With this information, they will be able to guarantee enough remaining space to answer allocation requests as quickly as possible.

When will aggregates be running out of capacity?

1. Access the NetApp Systems page:
   1. Log on to the TrueSight console.
   2. In the Navigation pane, click Capacity Views > Storage > NetApp Systems.
2. Click the Aggregates tab.
   
3. Verify the capacity of your aggregates and more especially:
   1. their total space (Capacity metric).
   2. the total space not consumed (Available Capacity metric).
   3. the space actually consumed (Consumed Capacity metric).
   4. the percentage of overcommited space consumed by the volume (Over Commitment metric).

You will now be able to take the necessary actions at the right time to ensure that aggregates will never run out of capacity.

By how much the capacity of the aggregates must be extended to meet allocation requirements?

1. Access the NetApp Systems page:
   1. Log on to the TrueSight console.
   2. In the Navigation pane, click Capacity Views > Storage > NetApp Systems.
2. Click the Aggregates tab.
   
3. Click the aggregate of your choice to display its details and check its Consumed Capacity Trendline.

After completing the above steps, you should know exactly by how much the capacity of the aggregates needs to be extended.

Are there enough unused disks in clusters to extend the capacity of the existing aggregates?

Before purchasing additional space, administrators can also check if there are unused disks in their aggregates that could still be used to extend the capacity of the existing aggregates. To perform this verification:

1. Access the NetApp Systems page:
   1. Log on to the TrueSight console
   2. In the Navigation pane, click Capacity Views > Storage > NetApp Systems
2. Click the HA Pairs or Clusters tab.
   
3. Click the HA Pair or Cluster for which you wish to check the number of unused disks.
4. In the Capacity Summary graph, check the Available for Storage Pools metric.
   

You now know which disks can be used to extend the capacity of your aggregates.