When to increase the Snapshot copy reserve
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In deciding whether to increase the Snapshot reserve, it's important to remember that a Snapshot copy records only changes to files since the last Snapshot copy was made. It consumes disk space only when blocks in the active file system are modified or deleted.
This means that the rate of change of the file system is the key factor in determining the amount of disk space used by Snapshot copies. No matter how many Snapshot copies you create, they will not consume disk space if the active file system has not changed.
A FlexVol volume containing database transaction logs, for example, might have a Snapshot copy reserve as large as 20% to account for its greater rate of change. Not only will you want to create more Snapshot copies to capture the more frequent updates to the database, you will also want to have a larger Snapshot copy reserve to handle the additional disk space the Snapshot copies consume.
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A Snapshot copy consists of pointers to blocks rather than copies of blocks. You can think of a pointer as a “claim” on a block: ONTAP “holds” the block until the Snapshot copy is deleted. |
