To get the best performance and reliability from any storage space, strategic storage planning is essential. While much time is spent in equipment planning, just as much effort should be applied towards researching operating systems and their available file systems.
Let’s put things into perspective – how much space is 1TB? (see Table)
To that end, there are numerous storage options available today. There are so many options that this may contribute to confusion and data loss among IT departments. Why are large amounts of data challenging? A single storage area with millions of files may create a ‘black hole’ of data, where files go in but almost never are found again. Users can become frustrated with file retrieval performance because the file system has to ‘find’ a single file amongst hundreds of thousands of other files. This is where understanding how and what the file system is doing can help make proactive choices easier during the planning time of large storage systems.
File System Considerations
During server planning, more time and research is spent on hardware, data space requirements and application specifications than on how the data will be stored. The file system can become a low priority during the planning stages of a file or data server because the file system is inherent to the operating system. Sometimes it is assumed that this is the best fit. However, your storage requirements may call for a more robust method of data organization on the hard disk(s). Investigate whether the operating system you are planning to use allows for other file systems to be used.
If you have a choice of file systems, here are some requirements to consider:
- Volume Size
- Estimated number of files on the volume
- Estimated size of files on the volume
- Shared volume requirements
- Backup Requirements
Volume Size
Volume size is an important place to start for planning. However, this is only the start since strategic planning involves scalability—can it grow as the need arises without interruption of service to the users? The axiom of filling free space is all too true for data volumes. It is not uncommon to add a terabyte of storage and in six months it’s already half full.
Two terabytes (2TB) has become the initial hurdle for many file systems. This limit starts with the SCSI command set being limited to 32-bit logical block addressing. Therefore, a single SCSI LUN using 512 byte block size cannot access over 2TB. File systems that have been used on these systems have been ‘adjusted’ to handle extremely large volumes. However, volumes that are nearing the 2TB limit may be stressing the limits of the file system.
How Much Is 1 Tb?
| Number of Bytes | What That Relates To |
| 1 Byte | One character (letter or number) |
| 1KB (Kilobyte) 1000 bytes | 3 or 4 typed manuscript style pages |
| 1MB (Megabyte) 1,000,000 bytes | Average size of a novel (300-400pgs) or 1 diskette |
| 1GB (Gigabyte) 1,000,000,000 bytes | Approximately 20 sets of encyclopedias |
| 1TB (Terabyte) 1,000,000,000,000 bytes | A small library (approx. 5,000 books) |
