Capacity planning

Forecast the capacity needs of your block storage systems, file storage systems, pools (by tier), and StaaS environments. The calculated forecast is based on the historical storage usage of your resources.

Planning for your future capacity needs is an important part of ensuring that your operations keep running smoothly as your organization grows. With the rapid proliferation of applications and devices into every aspect of business, the demand for data storage has never been higher.

Note: Capacity planning requires at least 7 days of collected capacity data. Capacity planning becomes available only after the required data is gathered.

To help you stay ahead of demand, avoid critical capacity shortages, and make more informed purchasing decisions, you can forecast your future capacity needs based on analysis of your historical capacity usage. By using past metrics and advanced formulas, you can project, chart, and report on future capacity usage for block storage systems, file storage systems, pools (by tier), and STaaS environments.

To gain insights into your potential capacity requirements on the Capacity Planning page, navigate to Insights > Capacity Planning. Select a device type from the drop-down menu options that include block, file, pool, or STaaS and choose one or more devices or components. Proceed to the next page to view projections and a chart that displays the predicted capacity growth for the next year.

Information about block storage systems

Refer to the following capacity metrics details that are displayed under the block storage system on the Capacity Planning page:
Available Capacity (GiB)
(Previously known as Available Pool Space) The amount of usable capacity that is not yet used in the pools that are associated with a storage system. To calculate available capacity, the following formula is used:
(pool capacity - used capacity)
For XIV systems and IBM Storage Accelerate, pool capacity is the physical capacity of the pools and does not include the provisioned capacity of the pools.
Capacity Limit (%) and Capacity Limit (GiB)

The limit that was set on the capacity that is used by your storage systems. For example, the policy of your company is to keep 20% of the usable capacity of your storage systems in reserve. So, you log into the GUI as Administrator and set the capacity limit to 80%.

Set the capacity limit Set the capacity limit

Tip Click the illustration above to find out how to set capacity limits.

The GiB value for the capacity limit for the storage system is calculated when you set the value for the Capacity Limit (%).

To add the Capacity Limit (%) and the Capacity Limit (GiB) columns, right-click any column heading on the Block Storage Systems page.

See these related values for more information Adjusted Used Capacity (%) and Capacity-to-Limit (GiB).

This metric is not available for all storage systems, such as Dell EMC VMAX.

Raw Capacity (GB)
(Previously known as Raw Disk Capacity) The total raw (unformatted) disk capacity of a storage system. The capacity of managed disks and external disks for storage virtualizers is included in the calculation. The capacity of spare disks that are identified on IBM System Storage DS8000 storage systems is not included in the calculation.
Pools
A storage pool is a grouping of storage that consists of volumes, logical unit numbers (LUNs), or addresses that share a common set of administrative characteristics.
Recent Fill Rate (%)

The rate at which the capacity of the storage system is being consumed over the last 30 days. Use this value to see how quickly your storage systems are filling up.

Fill rate for storage systems
If 30 days of historical data is not available, it is the difference between today's fill rate % and the oldest value for the fill rate % in the last 30 days.
If you want to add the growth rate in GiB, right-click any column heading and click Recent Growth (GiB).

To see the Recent Fill Rate (%) for the pools in IBM Storage Insights Pro, double-click the storage system, and click View capacity by pool on the Overview page.

To see the Recent Fill Rate (%) for the pools in IBM Storage Insights, double-click the storage system, and click View capacity by pool in the Capacity section of the Overview tab.

Did you know:
Create reports Creating predefined capacity reports Creating predefined inventory reports
IBM Storage Insights users can now also create capacity reports for block storage systems and pools, and inventory reports for block storage systems. Try it out! From the menu, click Reports and pick a report.
Total Compression Ratio
The ratio of the uncompressed data size to the compressed data size for the entire storage system. The value N/A is displayed if the storage system contains at least one pool that uses compressing Flash Core Module (FCM) drives and also contains at least one compressed volume in any type of pool.
This metric is available for storage systems that run IBM Storage Virtualize 8.4.0.0 or later.
Used Capacity (%)
The percentage of physical capacity in the pools that is used, including overhead capacity. The value is always less than or equal to 100% because you cannot use more physical capacity on the volumes than is available in the pools.
To calculate used capacity percentage, the following formula is used:
[(used capacity ÷ pool capacity) × 100]

For example, if the used capacity percentage is 25% for a storage pool with a capacity of 200 GiB, then the capacity that is allocated to the volumes is 50 GiB.

A bar is displayed which represents the total amount of storage capacity in pools. Move the mouse pointer over the bar to display a text summary and details of the used capacity and the pool capacity, which is divided into the following values:

Information about file storage systems

Refer to the following capacity metrics details that are displayed under the file storage system on the Capacity Planning page:
Available File System Capacity (GiB)
The amount of unused storage space on all the file systems on the storage system or filer.
File System Capacity (%)
The percentage of the total file system capacity on the storage system or filer that is used by files and directories.
File System Capacity (GiB)
The total amount of storage space on all the file systems on the storage system.
Raw Capacity (GB)
(Previously known as Raw Disk Capacity) Total raw (unformatted) disk capacity of a storage system. When this value is calculated, IBM Storage Insights Pro does not include the capacity of storage system disks that become missing after data collection.
Used File System Capacity (GiB)
The amount of file system capacity on the storage system or filer that is used by files and directories. For IBM Storage Scale, the capacity that is used by all of the snapshots of the file systems is included in the Used File System Capacity value.

Information about pools

Refer to the following capacity metrics details that are displayed under pools or pools by tier on the Capacity Planning page:

View By Tiers
Select this checkbox to view key values about the different tiers that you defined for pools. If tiers are not defined for your pools, no values are displayed.
Available Capacity (GiB)
The amount of physical space that is available in the pool. If the pool is a parent pool, the amount of space that is used by the volumes in the child pools is also included.
Average Weekly Storage Growth (TiB)
(Available when you select View By Tiers) The average amount by which the used capacity of the pools in the tier has increased or decreased over the last seven days. Pools that were added within the last six days are not included in the calculation. If insufficient data is available to specify an average growth amount, Unavailable is shown.
Capacity (TiB)
(Available when you select View By Tiers) The total capacity of the tier, which comprises the total capacity of the pools on the tier.
Capacity Limit (%) and Capacity Limit (GiB)

The limit that was set on the capacity that is used by your pools. For example, the policy of your company is to keep 20% of the usable capacity of your pools in reserve. So, you log into the GUI as Administrator and set the capacity limit of your pools to 80%.

Set the capacity limit Set the capacity limit

Tip Click the illustration above to find out how to set capacity limits.

The GiB value for the capacity limit for the pool is calculated when you set the value for the Capacity Limit (%).

To add the Capacity Limit (%) and the Capacity Limit (GiB) columns, right-click any column heading on the Pools page.

See these related values for more information Adjusted Used Capacity (%) and Capacity-to-Limit (GiB).

Zero capacity: When you set the capacity limit for pools, the values shown for Zero Capacity are readjusted to take into account the capacity limit of the pool. The date will represent when the capacity limit of the pool is reached. If the pool has already reached the capacity limit, Depleted is shown. None is shown when a trend in storage consumption can't be detected because the pool's storage isn't being consumed or because not enough data was collected to predict storage consumption.
Availability: This metric is not available for all storage systems, such as Dell EMC VMAX.
Recent Fill Rate (%)

The rate at which the capacity of the pool is being consumed over the last 30 days. Use this value to see how quickly your pools are filling up.

Fill rate for pools
If 30 days of historical data is not available, it is the difference between today's fill rate % and the oldest value for the fill rate % in the last 30 days.

If you want to add the growth in used capacity in GiB, right-click any column heading and click Recent Growth (GiB).

This metric is not available for all storage systems, such as IBM FlashSystem A9000, IBM FlashSystem A9000R, and Dell EMC VMAX.

Total Compression Ratio
The ratio of the uncompressed data size to the compressed data size for all the pools in a storage system.
Tier
The tier level of pools on storage virtualizers. If the pool is not assigned a tier level, the cell is blank.
Usable Capacity (GiB)
The total amount of storage space in the pool. For XIV systems and IBM Storage Accelerate, capacity represents the physical or ("hard") capacity of the pool, not the provisioned ("soft") capacity.
Availability: All storage systems.
Used Capacity (%)
The percentage of physical capacity that is used by the volumes in the pool, including the volumes in child pools. This value is always less than or equal to 100% because you cannot allocate more physical space than is available in a pool. Check the value for used capacity to see:
  • Whether the physical capacity of the pool is fully allocated. That is, the value for used capacity is 100%.
  • Whether you have sufficient capacity to provision new volumes with storage
  • Whether you have sufficient capacity to allocate to the compressed and thin-provisioned volumes in the pool
Used Capacity (TiB)
(Available when you select View By Tiers) The amount of capacity that is used by the pools on the tier.
Weekly Storage Growth (TiB)
(Available when you select View By Tiers) The amount by which the used capacity of the pools in the tier has changed over the last seven days. The amount can increase or decrease. Pools that were added within the last six days are not included. If insufficient data is available to specify a growth amount, Unavailable is shown.
Zero Capacity
(Available when you select View By Tiers) The date when the capacity of the pools on the tier will run out. The capacity information that is collected over 180 days is analyzed to determine, based on trends in historical storage consumption, when all of the pools on the tier will run out of capacity. If all of the pools have already run out of capacity, the tier's capacity is reported as depleted. If sufficient information isn't available to analyze the storage consumption of the pools on the tier, none is shown as the value for zero capacity. If a capacity limit is set for the pools, the date shown in the Zero Capacity column is the date when the capacity limit is reached.

Information about pools STaaS environments

Refer to the following capacity metrics details that are displayed under STaaS environments on the Capacity Planning page:
Base Capacity (TB)
The amount of capacity that is committed from storage systems to your STaaS environment. The amount of capacity that is used above your base capacity helps determine the value for Month-to-Date Variable Usage and your service bill for the month.
Month-to-Date Average Usage (TB)
The average of daily capacity usage in your STaaS environment for the month up until the current day. This value helps to determine your service bill for the month.
Month-to-Date Variable Usage (TB)
The average amount of daily capacity that you used above the base capacity of your performance plan for the month up until the current day. This value helps to determine your service bill for the month.
Usable Capacity (TB)
The amount of capacity on a storage system that is available to the STaaS environment, after formatting and RAID techniques are applied.

Information about task icon

You can now resume where you left using this new view feature. It will redirect you to the storage device you were connecting.

  1. While selecting multiple devices for forecast, and you choose to navigate away while waiting for the task to complete, the Running and Completed tasks notification on the menu bar will notify you when the task is completed.

  2. Click view icon in Completed tasks section, you will be redirected to the page where you left.