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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ม.ค. 2021
- FREE TRIAL LICENSE DETAILS
For a FREE 1 year trial license of ANY QNAP licensed software, please email youtube_uk@qnap.com, with your QID (The email account associated with your QNAP NAS) and which software you’d like to trial. The license should appear in your account within 48 hours. Thin and Thick Volumes (aka Flexible Volumes)
Thin and Thick Volumes, also called Flexible Volumes, must be created inside a Storage Pool. A storage pool covers all available space on the disks and RAID array selected to create the pool. Once a pool has been created, flexible volumes can be created and will allocate storage space within the pool as required. Flexible volumes support advanced storage features such as snapshot, Qtier, and SSD cache acceleration. Flexible volumes can also be resized flexibly, converted between thin and thick types, and backed up to a remote storage pool via snapshot replica.
Thin Volumes allocate space in the storage pool as data is written into the volume. Only the size of data in the volume is used up from the pool space, and free space in the volume does not take up any pool space. If data is deleted from the volume, that space can be freed and given back to the storage pool free space. The pool free space is shared among all thin volumes, and the NAS administrator must take care to ensure there is enough free space in the pool as more data is written to thin volumes. In case the pool space is not enough, thin volumes will enter read-delete or read-only mode until more pool space is available.
Thin volumes are recommended when you need to create multiple volumes and share the storage pool space efficiently between them. Also, thin volumes are recommended if you are planning to use volume snapshots. When using snapshots with thin volumes, only modifications to existing data on the volume will increase the snapshot used space, the size will be the same as the modified data.
Thick Volumes allocate the total size of the volume upon creation. No matter how much data is actually stored in the volume, the total size of the volume will always be used up in the pool. On the other hand, this space is guaranteed to be available exclusively for this volume, even if other volumes used up all remaining pool free space.
Thick volumes are recommended if you are creating multiple volumes but need to guarantee the space for a particular volume. The performance of a thick volume may also be slightly better than a thin volume in some situations.
Note: If you are using snapshots with a thick volume, writing new data to the empty space of the volume will increase the snapshot used space by the same size as the new data. You will need to monitor the pool free space and recycle older snapshots periodically in order to avoid running out of pool space. For this reason, thin volumes would be recommended when using snapshots.
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Thank you! Finally I got it clearly what's difference between the thin and thick volumes.
I've used thin provisioning (selecting thin volumes ) in a commercial workspace; in real life and in complicated setups, converting from thin to thick could be the difference between being hard stopped at 52% utilization total overall and getting 74%. That's when combined with over-provisioning the amount of storage allocated compared to what's actually available.. In real life, no one could point to anything that could prove that some admin would see x% slower performance; it was to anyone else essentially imperceptible... Reconfiguring this storage, however, did save considerable expense; likely to the tune of about $125,000 to $175,000. Truth be told, it was also significantly faster as the EMC-paid expert who set it up initially, well, he screwed up, and I was able to address several of his major performance screwups. Using thin volumes with over-provisioning is not something I'd recommend unless you are going to monitor space closely anyways.( it was one of my jobs) . Using thin volumes (LUN's) also means moving onto the next step considerably quicker when setting it up; using thick or static volumes means waiting for the volume to get prepared.
For a home user, in most cases, one should tend to make their systems as simple as possible, i.e a single thin, not over provisioned, volume(s), sized to 10% of total available capacity remaining.. Choosing thin over thick tends to make moving onto the next step considerably faster. This means, when configuring your NAS, if you choose thin volumes, you can start using your volumes much quicker than with static or thick volumes. With thin, you might start using your new NAS in a few minutes; with thick, it might be a few hours ( or days depending upon the number of disks )
Unless a NAS/SAN has features that require thick provisioning, using thin provisioning is often good enough. The only area I would seriously consider thick provisioning for - is if using encryption. it's better to thick provision in that case, but not absolutely necessary .. Generally speaking, when encrypting, full disk/volume encryption tends to be the preferred method. Still, again, in real life, most would not see any significant performance difference.
In case you are curious: The EMC expert split each and every drive logically into two drives; From there, he built raid sets of half of those sub-disks, then created a storage pool that was owned by that storage processor. Volumes (LUNs) were created on the storage pool. Everything in that storage pool was wholly owned by the assigned storage processor. A storage processor is essentially a computer unto it's own - not a CPU processor by itself- but a full blown computer.
Repeat that same procedure with the other half of split disks/sub-disks - creating raid sets, storage pools and then volumes ( LUNs) on the remaining half- but assigned to the other storage processor and you end up with a concoction that ultimately is always waiting for the other storage processor to free up certain disks. While both storage processors can address all of the physical disks, only one can actually control a particular physical disk at any particular instance in time; the other storage processor has to WAIT till the disk is free. As this array was running virtual machines, well, the machines behaved as if the drives were locked up every few seconds or minutes ..
This was the paid-for expert's solution.. There were about 90 disks in the array, each storage processor owned 1/2 of each disk- and neither SP owned a complete disk.. Talk about a performance killer.. He did it because he thought it'd balance the loads between storage processors..
Thank you Craig. Just a pity I didn't see this when I first bought my TS251+. Good video and well presented. I'm going to use this when I move from static to thick/thin volume on my 2Tb to 6Tb HDDs
Great video explanation on volumes. Please keep these videos coming. I purchased a TVS-472XT last week and coming from a Western Digital NAS the learning curve for QNAP is pretty steep! 😎
Likewise I got TVS-672XT last week. Its a steep learning curve definitely.
This is very useful. Thank you for this, it saves me researching it for an hour and finding three opposing and contradictory views. :)
Finally i understand! Awesome explanation and guide 💚
Thank you man! It really helped!
Thank you so much. So helpful!
Great explanation. How much minimum % of the total volume should be kept as free space while creating a thick volume. Thank you.
Thanks for that it was helpful
I am looking to upgrade from my rather old TS-509 using Firmware 3.11 to a TS-653D. Watching this and other videos is quite a learning curve compared to the very simple RAID and volume management on my old NAS.
Thus, can I assume that a static volume is essentially the same setup as I would have on my old TS-509 where I have 4 of my 5 drives configured as RAID 5?
Are static volumes created atop a storage pool? I understand that storage pools allow mixing of drive capacities, a real boon compared to my old system. If this is so, what then is the disadvantage,apart from lack of snapshotting, to using a static volume over a thick one?
Any further clarification would be helpful as I'm trying to get my rather old head around the newer technologies and want to replicate my current con fig on my new QNAP, but also want someone to explain the difference between a thick volume and static apart from the lack of snapshot facility.
I am not considering the thin volume option because of concerns about write overhead when the thin volume is constantly being expanded when copying all my current data to the new system.
Hi Qnap UK - on one of the videos (maybe this one but I can't remember exactly) - it was mentioned by Craig that he uses his personal QNAP with one storage pool but with a CCTV recording volume without cache and data volume with SSD cache. However, a lot of people in other places have told me that it's best to use a seperate disk for CCTV - but this seems inefficient. I worked out that the throughput from my (max of) 8 4MP cameras at 30fps should be around 10mbytes/sec which isn't htat massive. Do you think it is ok to create one big RAID5 on my NAS (6x8tb disks) and use this for both data and CCTV? Thanks in advance
Curious if I should use thin or thick volume. Currently thin Raid 1 encrypted with snapshots. Large photo library is slow to load and wondering if converting to thick would be better performing. Conversely I hear snapshots would use space as “new” data would be part of the snap vs thin where only “modified” data is part of the snap.
Something a bit more basic... in what situations would you want to create more than a single volume and why ?
Does choosing between thin or thick volumes have an impact on snapshot sizes?
Thank you Craig for a super clear explanation of the differences between the volumes. Question for you: which one has better performance on a RAID 5 NAS, Thick or thin?
Thanks in advance.
BTW I just got a TS-453D
@@QNAPUK Thank you for the super fast answer!!
If I was to create a static volume (raid 6 across 8 4tb drives). Could I, at a later date in the future, change these drives to let's say 8tb drives and expand the array without having to offload the data? Would it have to be done 1 drive at a time so the data is rebuilt?
Bueller, Bueller, . . .anyone?
I have a QNAP 4bay 453B-mini with 2 x 8TB Legacy volume Raid 1(with data on it), I want to add 2 x 12TB and create Storage pool with Raid 5. I need to understand the right procedure to do so.
Do you have a guide or video on how to do so`?
i have mixed storage capacity in my pool such as
8, 4, 4, 6, 8, 8
if i replace the 4's TB with a 8TB. Do i get to resize my pool?
New to setting up NAS here. I need to set up a share for all company data (folders, files) to be accessed by staff on the LAN and via VPN. Would you suggest a NAS is a suitable solution for a office of approx 40 users and setting up the volumes as Thin ? Do you have any resource you can share on creating a file server or sort with the NAS ?
Thanks for the video, it was helpful. I am having a hard time determining if a storage pools are necessary or beneficial in my use case for my QNAP NAS running QTS 5 or if Static volumea fit better. I'm looking to install two 500GB NVME as the primary volume in Raid1. They will be used for the system apps, plex, download folder, small local VM images I will run on the NAS and Docker containers. It seems like a simple static volume would suffice since I would only upgrade the drives by replacing both with larger ones as they on on a PCIE card with only two slots. I have no intention of using iscsi. My other volume with be a RAID5 of 3-4 large spinning disk drives which could be expanded by adding an additional drive down the road if needed. The second raid will be used for movies, tv shows, photos, data backups. Anything important will also be backed up to another NAS periodically. Possibly the Raid5 could use a storage pool and thick volume but even that seems like Static would be fine for. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Static probably fine for the use case, but I'd personally always use Storage Pools as they're much more flexible. If your needs change unexpectedly in a few years you'll be able to accommodate with Storage Pools, if you use Static then it's much more work. Whilst Static is the fastest... you would really only notice the performance boost if you were completely saturating it with demand for long periods of time, I'd always prefer the option for flexibility and snapshots personally.
Yes, I do have a question. I'm a little confused because in my storage pool 2 made from five 8TB drives in a RAID5 I go from 28TB to 22TB -- I'm guessing because I have Over-provisioning and guaranteed snap both at 2.80TB leaving 22TB, and that's fine, but I only have one shared folder set up as a thick volume at 14TB which should leave me with 8TB but I seem to only have 3TB of "Unallocated" space left. I did resize the shared folder a couple of times to smaller and then back to larger. And I did change the guaranteed snap to 0MB because the parent "pool" already had 2.8TB of spaced allocated to snaps as 10% of the original 28TB. Is there a way to "defrag" or "clean up" past allocated snap space or am I missing something entirely? 28 minus 2.8 minus 2.8 minus 14 should be 8.4TB of space left over, yet I'm only seeing 3TB unallocated. h973AX
Thank you.
@@QNAPUK I sent the e-mail. Of course, I forgot to add the attachments so I had to resend it. Thank you.
Hi Graig. Why do i get this message everytime i make a shared folder in CuTS Hero?:
"Thin provisionning does not support shared folder/LUN's guaranteed snapshot space. To enshure that there is always sufficient space for snapshots, use thick provisioning and configure guaranteed snapshot space. Do you want to continue using thin provisioning?"
For me this is conflicting information. It does say that i can not make thin prrovisioning folders with snapshots.
I do have 6 drivers of 12TB in raid 6 with 42 TB free space after creating pool 1.
What do i not understand? What must i do to create a thin provisioning folder correctly?
Thank you
Great video! Thank you for the thorough explanation and for using a real-life example.
Is it possible to move from a Legacy Volume (RAID 6) setup to a Storage Pool setup without losing data on newly rebuilt, higher-capacity drives?
I have just finished rebuilding my 6x 4TB system by installing 6x 10TB drives (one drive at a time) and would like to expand the capacity. With the new drives installed, I believe that I have enough space to be able to duplicate the current data to a new Storage Pool/Volume allocation before deleting the Legacy Volume and expanding the new Storage Pool/Volume, but I am unsure if QNAP supports this.
If you have a link to a video or tutorial about how to properly do this migration WITHOUT formatting the current Legacy Volume, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Unfortunately not, to create a Storage Pool you would need a free drive that is not in use already, will not work with a portion of space from a drive, must be a whole drive.
Really you are looking at copying data off to something else (if you have something big enough) and making the change, then put your data back.
Thank you so much for your response. Will look at a separate storage solution in order to complete this upgrade.@@QNAPUK
After I changed the hard drive from 2TB to 8TB, I expanded it to the maximum capacity. I forgot to allocate disk space for snapshots. How can I get free space for snapshots without deleting the existing volume ?
Hi Can you make a video for my problem? 6 bay NAS 1 drive error, replaced -hot swap- that drive now it doesn't rebuild!! ( RAID10)
The drive is shown a "hot spare"
In the mean time another drive warning... I made a USB backup from all folders and like to reformat my drives and use RAID6
with 4 disks instead of 6.
How can I realize that when I want to preserve my settings like share an surveillance QVR stuff?
I have 5x16TB in a Raid5
I created an thin volume, and allowed it to use all 58TB.
Today i suddenly learn that it says storage is full, cant move files to my storage..
I see that i only have 42TB storage used, and have 12Tb unallowcated..
How can i get the last 12TB to be used?
This maybe a silly question but what if its a Thin and say there is 20TB of physical disks say 5Tb is used in the Thin volume now if you were to write with out changing anything say 10TB of data to it would it automatically grab the left over space that is unallocated? Or would it just say its full and you cant write data to it?
With 20TB of physical space available in the NAS, 5TB used in a Thin Volume and then you add another 10TB of data into that volume, then the free space in the Storage Pool would be 5TB and the physical size of your Thin Volume would be 15TB, still has 5TB to grow some more. (so long as you sized your Thin Volume to 20TB at least)
How to from a single static volume 500gb HDD to two 4tb HDD RAID 1 in my TS-230 NAS?
@@QNAPUK Do I need reinstall the QTS OS?
@@QNAPUK So the login page of QTS is in (non-removable) flash memory?
You created a 5TB thin volume but the capacity shows up as 4.96TB. Where does this discrepancy come from?
File system creation
Do not use thin volume. When they crash you cannot recover the data. Static is easy to recover.