Product:

CLARiiON CX4 Series

Description:

This document describes and compares among Thin LUN, Thick LUN and traditional RAID Group LUNs.

Resolution:

The following are the differences between Thick, Thin and RAID group LUNs:

Feature

RAID Group LUN RAID 6, RAID 5, RAID 3, RAID 1/0, Pool RAID RAID 6, RAID 5, or RAID 6, RAID 5, or RAID 1/O. or RAID 1 RAID types RAID 1/O. groups, individual disk, or hot spare. Only supported LUN expansion Fully supported. Fully supported. using metaLUNs. Fully supported for Windows Server 2008 hosts connected to a Fully supported for Fully supported for Windows storage system LUN shrinking Windows Server Server 2008 hosts. running R30 or later 2008 hosts. for pool LUNs (thin and thick) and R29 for RAID group LUNs. Supported if the Compression enabler Fully supported if LUN Fully supported if the is installed, but the Compression compression Compression enabler is installed. migrates the RAID enabler is installed. group LUN to a pool LUN.

Thick LUN

Thin LUN

LUN migration Fully supported. Any type of disk, including Flash (SSD) disks, can be in the pool with the Disk usages thick LUN. The disks in the pool with the thick LUN cannot be the vault disks 000004.

Fully supported.

Fully supported.

Any type of disk, including Flash All disks in the (SSD) disks, can be in the pool RAID group with the with the thin LUN. The disks in LUN must be of the the pool with the thin LUN cannot same type. be the vault disks 000004.

When you create a thin LUN, a minimum of 2 GB of space on the pool is reserved for the thin LUN. Space is assigned to the thin LUN When you create a When you create a on an as-needed basis. Since the LUN, the LUN is thick LUN, the LUN thin LUNs compete for the pools assigned physical is assigned physical space, a pool can run out of space space on the RAID space on the pool for its thin LUNs. Such an event group equal to the equal to the LUNs Space efficiency is an unrecoverable write error LUNs size. This size. This space is and data from the last write space is always always available to operation will not be available. available to the LUN the LUN even if it Some applications, such as even if it does not does not actually use VERITAS Storage Foundation, actually use the the space. may return space no longer space. needed to the pool by an appropriate signaling to the storage system. Thick LUN RAID group LUN performance is performance is comparable to the comparable to the performance of a Thin LUN performance is performance of a Performance RAID group LUN typically slower than thick LUN thick LUN and is and is typically performance. typically faster than faster than the thin LUN performance of a performance. thin LUN. Pools require less RAID groups require Manual manual Pools require less manual more manual administration administration than administration than RAID groups. administration than RAID groups. pools. A thin LUN can be a snapshot Fully supported for source LUN, a clone LUN, a Use with thick LUNs. A thick clone source LUN, but not a clone Fully supported for SnapView LUN cannot be a private LUN, and not in the RAID group LUNs. clone private LUN. reserved LUN pool. A thin LUN cannot be a clone private LUN. Use with Fully supported for Mirroring with thin LUNs as Fully supported for MirrorView/A thick LUNs. A thick primary or secondary images is RAID group LUNs. or LUN cannot be used supported only between storage

systems running FLARE 04.30 or later. For mirroring between storage systems running FLARE in the write intent 04.30, the primary image, MirrorView/S log. secondary image, or both images can be thin LUNs. A thin LUN cannot be used in the write intent log. Thin LUNs are supported only for SAN Copy sessions in the following configurations:1)Within Fully supported for a storage system running FLARE Fully supported for Use with SAN thick LUNs in all 04.30 or later, 2)Between systems RAID group LUNs Copy configurations. running FLARE 04.30 or later in all configurations. The source LUN must be on the storage system that owns the SAN Copy session.