HPE Storage Users Group

Hi,

I would like to know how can we re-claim free space on the 3PAR. I am already using VMKFSTOOLS for VMs and sdelete for 3PAR. However, we still not getting exact figure on free space. So I was doing research on the Internet and found taht we can use HP 3PAR Thin Copy Reclamation software to re-claim free space. Howeevr, I don't know much about this and would like to ask belwo questions regarding this software:
HP 3PAR Thin Copy Re-clamation Software:
1. Is it seprate software taht we need to install?
2. How can we use this software to re-claim free space?

It's part of the thin suite on 7000/10000 series so is preinstalled, unless you have older generation 3PAR's in which case it would be a separate license. T10unmap, sdelete etc will trigger the reclaim you can monitor the process in realtime using cli% showvv -s.

There's lots of discussions on here regarding space reclaim but abstraction at the file system / hypervisor can get in the way of reclaim so it's not always obvious how it's achieved. Have a look at the powerpoint in presentation mode, it shows the various layers between the deleted data and the 3PAR and should go some way to explaining the space reclamation process.

https://db.tt/gfzHtoaf

Thanks for your reply!

We have 3PAR 10400 model and under installed license it shows we have Thin Copy Reclamation software licnese installed/enabled. Does this mean this software is pr-insatlled? Will it automatically re-claim space from 3PAR or we have to do it manually?

It's preinstalled / enabled via the license key. The array will reclaim internal data automatically but for live file systems you will need to signal to the array what has been deleted as in the PPT I linked in my previouus response. The way to do this varies by operating system, Windows prior to 2012 required a manual script to be run, VMware has it's own unmap etc, if your using the 2 together you may have to use one after the other.

See this whitepaper, page 27 onwards and appendix A and B. http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetDocumen ... A3-8987ENW

This subject has been covered extensively on the forums so I'd do a search if you have further questions around space reclamation as it's likely been answered before..