SnapDrive overview
This chapter describes the features supported in SnapDrive 6.0 for Windows and how the SnapDrive application works.
- What SnapDrive does
SnapDrive software integrates with Windows Volume Manager so that storage systems can serve as virtual storage devices for application data in Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 environments.
- What SnapDrive does not do
Some functionality is currently not supported in SnapDrive for Windows.
- Recommendations for using SnapDrive
Follow these recommendations whenever you use SnapDrive for Windows.
- Features added in SnapDrive 6.0 for Windows
SnapDrive 6.0 for Windows introduces support on Windows Server 2008, as well as several other new features.
- Features supported
SnapDrive for Windows is supported with a variety of protocols and applications.
- SnapDrive components
Several components are integrated into the SnapDrive for Windows software. This topic describes those components.
- How LUNs work
The following section describes how LUNs work by interacting with Windows hosts and with storage systems.
- Disk allocation considerations
Resources you should consider when you plan disk allocation on the storage system include RAID groups, hot spare disks, and aggregates.
- How volume space is used
SnapDrive uses space on a storage system volume for LUNs and their data, and also for the data that changes between Snapshot copies, the LUN's active file system, and for metadata.
- Volume and storage system options set by SnapDrive
SnapDrive for Windows automatically checks and resets some storage system and volume options.
- What space reservation is
When space reservation is enabled for one or more files, Data ONTAP reserves enough space in the volume (traditional or FlexVol) so that writes to those files do not fail because of a lack of disk space.
- Disk space usage with space reservation
When space reservation is enabled, the amount of space available on a LUN volume determines whether Snapshot copy creation can take place.
- What fractional reserve is
If you have enabled space reservation for files or LUNs, you can reduce the size of the reserved space by using fractional reserve. You set fractional reserve using the vol options command.
