Storage Calculator is both a standalone tool as well as a Sizer feature. Either way it is used to determine the Extent Store and Effective Capacity of a configuration the user defines. It is NOT tied to the workloads or the recommendation in the sizing scenario.
Access as a Standalone Tool
This is available on the Internet without login. The same as DesignBrewz.
https://services.nutanix.com/#/storage-capacity-calculator
Access as a Sizer Feature
This is accessed by clicking on Storage Calculator in upper right corner of Sizer user interface
Storage Calculator
Here is Storage Calculator.
The purpose of Storage Calculator is to determine either the Extent Store or the Effective Capacity of a configuration. As mentioned it is not tied to a sizing scenario.
- Extent Store is the amount of storage remaining after discounting for CVM. This is amount available for customer workloads.
- Effective Capacity is then Extent Store * Storage Efficiency + Erasure Coding savings you expect. Storage Efficiency is either none, 1.5:1, or 2:1. Examples of storage efficiency is compression and dedupe.
Defining the Configuration and Input Settings
Here are the inputs
- SSD Size – Pulldown with common SSDs currently available in various vendor models
- SSD is downstroked – If selected each drive loses 80GB for downstroking. Sizer does that in its sizing for regular SSDs but assumes no downstroking is needed for encrypted drives
- SSD quantity – This is the number of SSDs you expect in model you are sizing. Minimum is 1 as always need a SSD for parts of CVM
- HDD Size – Pulldown with common HDDs currently available in various vendor models
- HDD quantity – This is the number of HDDs you expect in model you are sizing. Min is 0 in case of All Flash
- Node Count – Number of nodes you expect
- Replication Factor – Can be RF2 or RF3
- ECX – If selected then see the % of Cold Data input
- % of Cold Data – If select ECX then this input appears and is the percentage of cold data you are expecting
- Storage Efficiency – This is the factor you expect for storage efficiency and can be none, 1.5:1, or 2:1.
- Calculate Button – NOTE: must click on calculate when make any changes above
Storage Calculator Charts
Total Usage
- The left donut chart shows the Extent Store and the CVM. Extent Store is adjusted for either RF2 or RF3 depending on the input selection. So here the extent store is adjusted for RF2 and is 7.26 TiB. The total amount of Extent Store is 2x that amount or 14.52 TiB. The adjustment was made so the customer sees amount of storage they have given the Replication Factor they prefer.
- The right donut breaks out all the CVM pieces be it stored on HDD or SSD
- Effective Capacity is above the charts. It is Extent Store * Storage Efficiency Factor + ECX savings. Again we adjust for RF level. This capacity then represents the storage available to customers at their preferred RF level and including expected benefits from storage efficiency as as well as ECX.
SSD Usage
This is a supplemental graph from Total Usage. It breaks out just the SSD portion of the Total Usage.
- Top graph shows SSD CVM and SSD Extent Store adjusted for either RF2 or RF3
- Lower graph shows all the SSD CVM elements.
HDD Usage
This is a supplemental graph from Total Usage. It breaks out just the HDD portion of the Total Usage.
- Top graph shows HDD CVM and HDD Extent Store adjusted for either RF2 or RF3
- Lower graph shows all the HDD CVM elements.
What do the letters in the SSD drive indicate?
The letters indicate different levels of endurance in terms of Drive Writes per Day (DWPD). For example, 3DWPD means you can rewrite all the data on the drive 3 times a day for its entire life that it is warranted for.