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What is the recommended maximum storage utilization in a cluster?


Customers can observe cluster issues when they use more than 90 percent of the total available storage on the cluster. Here is a brief explanation on the recommended storage utilization in respect to the replication factors 2 & 3. 

For a cluster to be considered healthy and functioning as expected, the cluster has to tolerate at least one node failure for data resiliency. 

Here is an explanation on how much free space you need and how to calculate it.

 

The formula for calculating the maximum recommended usage for clusters is one of the following:

  • Recommended maximum utilization of a cluster with containers using replication factor (RF)=2

    M = 0.9 x (T - N1)

  • Recommended maximum utilization of a cluster with containers using replication factor (RF)=3

    M = 0.9 x (T - N1 + N2])

M Recommended maximum usage of the cluster
T Total available physical storage capacity in the cluster
N1 Storage capacity of the node with the largest amount of storage
N2 Storage capacity of the node with the next largest amount of storage

 

We have a feature which guesses how soon your cluster will hit the threshold based on the above calculations and the rate of grow: Capacity Runaway Feature

Check out this KB for more information and examples: https://portal.nutanix.com/kb/1557 

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions!