The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Thin Provisioning with SAN Storage

 

Storage Area Networks (SANs) are increasingly popular as companies and organizations continue to adopt data-driven strategies in their operations. With this, there is always the need for more storage space. Thin provisioning is a promising technology that flies under the radar, yet it can help organizations make better use of their SAN storage and save them costs in the long-term. In this blog post, we’ll discuss what thin provisioning with SAN storage is all about, its advantages, and disadvantages to help you decide if it’s the right solution for your organization.

 

What Is Thin Provisioning?

 

In a traditional storage environment, storage space is allocated in fixed amounts. This means a storage volume is created to occupy the full size specified even if the actual size of the data doesn’t take up the full volume. Thin provisioning, on the other hand, virtualizes storage space and allows IT departments to allocate large volumes of virtual capacity that the system then fills with actual data as needed.

 

Advantages of Thin Provisioning with SAN Storage

 

Cost Savings: Thin provisioning allows IT administrators to acquire the storage space that they need when they need it, resulting in a reduced amount of unused storage space. This means that businesses can save money on the cost of actual storage as well as reduce additional costs such as floor space and energy consumption.

 

Improved Flexibility: With thin provisioning, IT administrators can create storage volumes much larger than the available physical storage in their data center. By using a common pool of virtual storage, they can move data between the physical storage components of the SAN without disrupting running applications.

 

Reduction in Over-Provisioning: Thin provisioning helps to eliminate the issue of overprovisioning in which IT administrators allocate more storage space than necessary for specific workloads to avoid storage allocation issues. This significantly reduces idle storage space in SAN environments.

 

Disadvantages of Thin Provisioning with SAN Storage

 

The Performance Latency Problem: The need for storage virtualization and mapping in a thin provisioning environment can cause performance latency since the system needs to monitor and manage the allocation of actual storage space while the data is being written or read.

 

Potential Storage Shortage: Thin provisioning environments depend on virtualized storage space. If the demand for storage space exceeds the available physical storage on the data center, this can result in data loss or system downtime.

 

Complexity of Management: Though thin provisioning can help reduce the complexity of storage management for some IT tasks, it can also create additional complexity in others. For instance, the IT administrator needs to create and configure the virtual storage volumes to meet the expectations of the organization.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, thin provisioning with SAN storage can provide significant advantages to organizations that require flexible storage space. These benefits range from cost savings to improved flexibility and reduced over-provisioning. However, this technology can come with its fair share of disadvantages such as performance latency and potential storage shortage. IT administrators must weigh the pros and cons of this technology before implementing it in their organization. If you’re looking to save costs, improve flexibility, and eliminate the possibility of over-provisioning, then thin provisioning with SAN solution may be the right solution for you.