Starting Space Reclaimer

You can start space reclamation using SnapDrive for Windows MMC snap-in.

Before you begin

To use this feature, you must have Data ONTAP 7.2.7 or later installed on your storage system.

Steps

Under SnapDrive in the left MMC pane, expand the instance of SnapDrive you want to manage, then expand Disks and select the disk you want to manage.

From the menu choices at the top of MMC, navigate to Action > Start Space Reclaimer.

If SnapDrive detects that there is...	Then a window appears...
Space to reclaim	Confirming that the LUN space can be optimized. Continue to the next step.
No space to reclaim	Notifying you that you do not need to run Space Reclaimer on the selected disk. Click Cancel to exit the Confirm Space Reclamation on Disk window, or go to the next step to continue with space reclamation. Note: When you run Space Reclaimer on a disk that SnapDrive has determined has no space to reclaim, the space reclamation process can still take as long to complete as it would for a disk that does have reclaimable space. This is because SnapDrive performs NTFS block comparisons and analyzes disk infrastructure regardless of whether there is space to reclaim.

If SnapDrive detects that there is...

Then a window appears...

Space to reclaim

Confirming that the LUN space can be optimized.

Continue to the next step.

No space to reclaim

Notifying you that you do not need to run Space Reclaimer on the selected disk.

Click Cancel to exit the Confirm Space Reclamation on Disk window, or go to the next step to continue with space reclamation.

Note: When you run Space Reclaimer on a disk that SnapDrive has determined has no space to reclaim, the space reclamation process can still take as long to complete as it would for a disk that does have reclaimable space. This is because SnapDrive performs NTFS block comparisons and analyzes disk infrastructure regardless of whether there is space to reclaim.

In the Confirm Space Reclamation on Disk window, limit the amount of time Space Reclaimer runs on a LUN by selecting the "Limit (in minutes) Space Reclamation operation" checkbox.
In the space provided by the check box, type the number of minutes you want Space Reclaimer to run on the LUN. By default, Space Reclaimer runs until the LUN is optimized.
Click OK to continue.
The space reclamation process runs in the background. You can monitor the Space Reclaimer progress for the selected LUN by watching the status bar in the Details pane in MMC.
Note: SnapDrive might indicate that it is necessary to run Space Reclaimer again after it has successfully completed a space reclamation process. This can happen if data is deleted from a LUN while Space Reclaimer is running. It is strongly recommended that the space reclamation process is performed when there is little or no activity on both the storage system and the Windows host.