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Configuration · ONTAP 9

Provision aggregates and volumes

Capacity planning, volume creation, junctions, and verification.

Scenario

Example: a 2 TiB NFS data volume named vol_projects on svm_prod. Size the containing aggregate for data, snapshots, growth, and operational headroom.

Before you change production

Commands and screens can differ by release and platform. Replace example names and documentation IP addresses. Check prerequisites, impact, current health and rollback with your change owner.

1. Choose placement and policy

  1. Inspect aggregate capacity and disk protection. Identify the correct aggregate, storage tier, and performance objective. Estimate logical data growth, snapshot reserve/retention, thin provisioning, and physical free space.
  2. Decide volume security style, snapshot policy, autosize and space guarantee. For NAS, choose a unique junction path such as /projects; for SAN, plan LUN containment and host alignment separately.
Read-only planning 
storage aggregate show
volume show
volume show-space

2. Create and validate

  1. In System Manager, open Storage > Volumes, select the target SVM, name, size, placement, protocol and protection settings. Confirm the chosen policy before saving.
  2. For NFS/SMB, confirm the junction is mounted and the volume or qtree has the intended access policy. For SAN, create the LUN and host mapping as a separate controlled step.
  3. Write a test file or present a test LUN from an approved client. Re-check volume and aggregate utilization immediately afterward.
Read-only validation 
volume show -vserver svm_prod -volume vol_projects
volume show-space -vserver svm_prod -volume vol_projects
storage aggregate show

Worked CLI example: create the NAS volume

  1. Assume svm_prod and aggregate aggr_data already exist and have the capacity and policy approved above. Check the aggregate and SVM first.
  2. Create a 2 TiB UNIX-style volume and mount it at /projects. Then inspect the volume state, size, junction and remaining aggregate space. Assign a restrictive export policy before client use.
Example change commands · review before running 
storage aggregate show -aggregate aggr_data
vserver show -vserver svm_prod
volume create -vserver svm_prod -volume vol_projects -aggregate aggr_data -size 2TB -junction-path /projects -security-style unix
volume show -vserver svm_prod -volume vol_projects
storage aggregate show -aggregate aggr_data
Verify

vol_projects is online under svm_prod, mounted at /projects, with approved physical headroom.

3. Establish thresholds

  1. Set alerts for volume and aggregate headroom. Record which snapshots or workloads explain expected usage. Review physical used space, not only the logical size displayed to clients.
  2. When growing a volume, first confirm aggregate capacity and the effect on other guaranteed volumes.
Verify

Volume online; correct SVM and junction; authorized client access; usable physical headroom remains.

If validation fails

  1. If the requested volume size is rejected, inspect aggregate free physical space, guarantees, volume limits and placement. Do not simply select an arbitrary aggregate.
  2. If a NAS volume exists but is invisible to clients, verify the junction path, parent traversal, export/share policy and data LIF rather than recreating the volume.
  3. If physical usage jumps after provisioning, separate active data, snapshot, metadata and clone contributions and revise growth forecasts.
Verify

Re-run the original validation and record the observed result, exact error, time, and corrective action.

NetApp references