Data Storage Capacity Mostly Wasted In Data Center

Lucas123 writes "Even after the introduction of technologies such as thin provisioning, capacity reclamation and storage monitoring and reporting software, 60% to 70% of data capacity remains unused in data centers due to over provisioning for applications and misconfiguring data storage systems. While the price of storage resource management software can be high, the cost of wasted storage is even higher with 100TB equalling $1 million when human resources, floor space, and electricity is figured in. 'It's a bit of a paradox. Users don't seem to be willing to spend the money to see what they have,' said Andrew Reichman, an analyst at Forrester Research."

Comments

Overprovisioning

[shoppa]

It's so easy to over-provision. Hardware is cheap and if you don't ask for more than you think you need, you may end up (especially after the app becomes popular, gasp!) needing more than you thought at first.

It's like two kids fighting over a pie. Mom comes in, and kid #1 says "I think we should split it equally". Kid #2 says "I want it all". Mom listens to both sides and the kid who wanted his fair share only gets one quarter of the pie, while the kid who wanted it all gets three quarters. That's why you have to ask for more than you fairly need. It happens not just at the hardware purchase end but all the way up the pole. And you better spend the money you asked for or you're gonna lose it, too.

Disk space is free

[amorsen]

Who cares if you leave disks 10% full? To get rid of the minimum of 2 disks per server you need to boot from SAN, and disk space in the SAN is often 10x the cost of standard SAS disks. Especially if the server could make do with the two built-in disks and save the cost of an FC card + FC switch port.

I/O's per second on the other hand cost real money, so it is a waste to leave 15k and SSD disks idle. A quarter full does not matter if they are I/O saturated; the rest of the capacity is just wasted, but again you often cannot buy a disk a quarter of the size with the same I/O's per second.