Thin vs Thick Lazy Zeroed + SAN thin provisioning

[taylorb]

Is there any benefit to using Thick Lazy Zeroed and then using Thin Provisioning at the FC LUN level vs just using Vmware Thin provisioning?  I guess I could use Thin for both VM and LUN, too.

Does Thick lazy Zeroed cause less lock/delay when filling unused space compared to Thin?

I don't think we see any savings using Thick Eager Zero with San Thin provisioning on our Netapp.

[vhenryanchante]

Pienso que son beneficios adicionales, ya que no en todos los sistemas operativos se puede expandir el disco, solo cargar un disco mas adicional, expandir solo en windows server 2008.

[reyntjensw]

Hi Taylor,

We have been using Thin on Thin (thin disks on a thin lun) and we have not seen any problems with that. (we do use Equallogic instead of Netapp)

The only disadvantage I see, is that our EQL storage does not notice that space is freed out of the LUN.

So I don't see any reason why not to do it.

[TheITHollow · Accepted solution]

You should see the disks at full size in vsphere, but thin on your SAN.

Maybe this will help.  http://theithollow.com/2013/03/are-you-thin-or-thick-where-at/

[reyntjensw]

Some more info, I've seen this podcast today : https://itunes.apple.com/nl/podcast/online-vmware-training/id415180540#

Go to episode 4, you'll see the difference

[AartK]

Sorry for bumping an old post but Eager thick zeroed on a thin provisioned SAN means you cannot leverage VAAI.

[Morgenstern72]

It depends on the SAN.

Lazy zeroed and thin on SAN takes off all CPU from ESX. The SAN does the work.

Eager zeroed and thin on SAN:this might give you some small amounts of better IO but the SAN needs to understand "zeroes" so it does not reserve the space.

Thin on Thin: you use both ressources of ESX hosts and SAN. Not recommended.

Example for a HP 3PAR found here: http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=4AA4-3286ENW