Purpose: To plan applications’ capacity and assure their most cost-effective storage utilization
1. Assess current data storage resources:
• Percent of used/unused capacity • Characteristics and relative value of storage media
2. Assess current data storage statistics:
• How much data is stored? • What type of data is it? • What are the data retention requirements?`
3. Assess data growth and usage metrics:
• How much new data is generated? • How frequently is each set of data used? • Who uses the data? Where are they?
Planning for future storage capacity requirements involves assessment of more than just raw storage capacity. Key considerations include the characteristics of both storage media and application data, the usage patterns associated with each set of data, and the business purpose of the data. Capacity planning involves the following basic steps:
1. Inventory current storage resources
• How much capacity is used/unused? Typically, organizations use 60% or less of their available storage Virtualization may help improve usage of existing storage.
• What are the characteristics of each storage resource? At minimum, categorize resources into high-end disk, low-end disk, and tape storage. Slower storage can be used for infrequently used data or archival data.