While thin provisioning saves labor in the data center, it has the potential to
waste a great deal of disk space with file and free space fragmentation. Fragmentation
occurs when the file system can't create a file in a contiguous string of logical
clusters. File creation, deletion and extension all exacerbate file fragmentation
as the disk fills up and the remaining free space is scattered around the disk.
With continued use, files and free space fragmentation degrade overall system performance.
As fragmentation increases, the demand for additional CPU and I/O resources increases
proportionally. This increasing demand is passed on to a Storage Area Network (SAN)
and/or virtualized platform, causing unnecessary overhead.
Another issue with thin provisioned storage is the difficulty in reclaiming free
space. When files are deleted in NTFS, the file system updates its metadata but
does not zero-out the space. The thin-provisioned storage sees this space as still
being used and could eventually runs out of "useable" space.
PerfectDisk - Not Just "Thin Friendly" - But a True Thin Provisioned Solution
PerfectDisk addresses these issues with a variety of features including fragmentation
prevention, a special thin-provisioned defrag algorithm to minimize storage growth,
and zero-fill free space capability.
The combination of OptiWrite™ and SMARTPlacement™ patented technologies
is able to prevent most fragmentation before it occurs, thus saving free space in
the first place. OptiWrite™ detects when Windows is going to fragment files
and intelligently redirects I/O so that most fragmentation does not occur. SMARTPlacement™
is a patented optimization strategy that organizes files according to usage patterns
and consolidates free space. The need to utilize CPU and Disk I/O resources to defragment
files is greatly reduced.
A new Short Stroke method improves optimization speed and improves support for Thin
Provisioned drives:
- Allows for optimization of thin provisioned disks without introducing excessive
growth.
- Works with the new Zero Fill pass in conjunction with thin persistent storage systems
to reclaim up to 30% more storage.
- Accelerates the optimization of large disk arrays by drastically shortening seek
times for all electromechanical drive types and arrays.
PerfectDisk Benefits in Thin Provisioned Environments
With all these features working together in one defrag solution for thin-provisioned
environments, you will improve overall system performance and end-user productivity,
reduce overhead costs with more efficient use of storage space allocation and reduced
energy costs.
Optimize server performance to its full capability and speed up processing times
so your entire server environment is running as efficiently as possible. Integrates
with the PerfectDisk 12 Enterprise Console for easy central management. Zero-fill
feature provides the ability for storage systems that offer thin provisioning to
reclaim space from deleted blocks. Scalable for SMBs and large enterprises that
want to centrally manage an entire network.
The PerfectDisk product line includes solutions for Hyper-V,
vSphere, and
WMware workstations. Virtual infrastructure awareness technology monitors
resource availability at the physical host level and allows optimizations
to occur dynamically between virtual guests. PerfectDisk is able to completely
eliminate the resource contention caused by simultaneous optimizations.
Only PerfectDisk offers a Zero-Fill
free space capability that consolidates free space and then zero-fills that
space. When moving from a physical to virtual environment, zero-filling the free
space after optimization of the physical system saves storage space on the
virtualized system. In a thinly-provisioned environment, zero-filling a virtual
machine after optimization and then compacting it gives you a smaller machine that
uses less storage. This also allows for recovering of zero-filled free space when
using one of the growing number of zero-detect SANs from HP/3PAR or HDS.