Technical White Paper

Dell EMC Unity: FAST Technology Overview

Overview

Abstract
This white paper is an introduction to the Dell EMC® FAST™ technology for the
Dell EMC Unity™ family of storage systems. It describes the background
concepts, major components, and implementation steps for Dell EMC FAST
technology, which includes FAST VP and FAST Cache. Guidelines and other
useful information such as benefits is included.

February 2021

H15086.3
Revisions

Revisions
Date Description
February 2021 Template, figures, and formatting updates. Added Unity XT supported FAST Cache
configurations.

Acknowledgments
Author: Ryan Poulin

The information in this publication is provided “as is.” Dell Inc. makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this
publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Use, copying, and distribution of any software described in this publication requires an applicable software license.

Copyright © 2016-2021 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell Technologies, Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks
of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners. [2/17/2021] [Technical White Paper] [H15086.3]

2 Dell EMC Unity: FAST Technology Overview | H15086.3

Table of contents

Table of contents
Revisions.............................................................................................................................................................................2
Acknowledgments ...............................................................................................................................................................2
Table of contents ................................................................................................................................................................3
Executive summary .............................................................................................................................................................5
Audience .............................................................................................................................................................................5
Terminology ........................................................................................................................................................................5
1 FAST VP .......................................................................................................................................................................7
1.1 Introduction .........................................................................................................................................................7
1.2 FAST VP licensing ..............................................................................................................................................7
1.3 Using FAST VP...................................................................................................................................................7
1.3.1 Pools ...................................................................................................................................................................7
1.3.2 FAST VP tiers .....................................................................................................................................................8
1.3.3 Pool tier RAID configurations .............................................................................................................................8
1.3.4 Tier considerations .............................................................................................................................................9
1.4 FAST VP tiering policies ...................................................................................................................................10
1.4.1 Tiering policy options ........................................................................................................................................10
1.4.2 Comparing the tiering policies ..........................................................................................................................12
1.5 The FAST VP algorithm ....................................................................................................................................12
1.5.1 Statistics Collection ..........................................................................................................................................12
1.5.2 Analysis ............................................................................................................................................................13
1.5.3 Relocation .........................................................................................................................................................13
1.6 Managing FAST VP ..........................................................................................................................................14
1.6.1 UnityVSA ..........................................................................................................................................................14
1.6.2 System level FAST VP management ...............................................................................................................15
1.6.3 Pool level FAST VP management ....................................................................................................................16
1.6.4 Storage resource level FAST VP management ...............................................................................................18
1.6.5 Expanding a Pool..............................................................................................................................................19
2 FAST Cache ...............................................................................................................................................................20
2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................20
2.2 FAST Cache Licensing .....................................................................................................................................20
2.3 FAST Cache Components ................................................................................................................................20
2.3.1 Policy Engine ....................................................................................................................................................20
2.3.2 Memory Map .....................................................................................................................................................20
2.4 Theory of Operation ..........................................................................................................................................21

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Table of contents

2.4.1 FAST Cache promotions ..................................................................................................................................21

2.4.2 Read Operations...............................................................................................................................................22
2.4.3 Write Operations ...............................................................................................................................................22
2.4.4 FAST Cache page cleaning ..............................................................................................................................24
2.4.5 FAST Cache Online Expand ............................................................................................................................24
2.4.6 FAST Cache Online Shrink ..............................................................................................................................24
2.5 FAST Cache Management ...............................................................................................................................25
2.5.1 Configuring FAST Cache ..................................................................................................................................25
2.5.2 Editing the FAST Cache Setting on a Pool ......................................................................................................27
2.5.3 Viewing the FAST Cache configuration ............................................................................................................27
2.5.4 Expanding FAST Cache ...................................................................................................................................28
2.5.5 Shrinking FAST Cache .....................................................................................................................................29
2.5.6 Deleting FAST Cache .......................................................................................................................................31
2.6 Supported Drives and Configurations...............................................................................................................32
2.7 Failure Handling................................................................................................................................................33
3 Comparison of FAST Cache and FAST VP ...............................................................................................................34
3.1 Interoperability ..................................................................................................................................................35
3.1.1 Unified Snapshots.............................................................................................................................................35
3.1.2 System Cache ..................................................................................................................................................35
4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................................37
A Technical support and resources ...............................................................................................................................38
A.1 Related resources.............................................................................................................................................38

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Executive summary

Executive summary
Dell EMC FAST™ software allows the Dell EMC Unity™ product family to leverage high-performance Flash
drives. FAST software consists of Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) and FAST
Cache. These two features work in tandem to use the storage within the system as efficiently as possible.
Each of these software features ensures that the most active data is serviced from Flash.

When FAST VP is enabled, the FAST VP software will measure and record performance statistics on each
slice within a Pool. Later, FAST VP analyzes this data and makes decisions to move data across multiple tiers
in a Pool to maximize Pool performance and efficiently use the space within the Pool. Slices that are highly
accessed are automatically moved to the higher tiers within a Pool, while slices with less activity move to
lower tiers within a Pool. Data already residing on Flash within a Pool will not promote to FAST Cache,
allowing more data within the system to take advantage of Flash.

FAST Cache is a high capacity secondary cache which logically sits below System Cache, and above the
drives in the system. FAST Cache complements the System Cache by using Flash drives to service highly
active data being requested from the drives. Frequently accessed data located on spinning drives in the Pool
is copied into FAST Cache for higher performance and lower response time. As FAST Cache copies data
onto Flash in 64 KB chunks, FAST Cache is efficient at using Flash. It is not uncommon for an entire active
dataset within a small capacity to reside in FAST Cache. With large maximum capacities on the higher end
Unity models, FAST Cache can be configured to handle most of the I/O on a system.

Audience
This white paper is intended for Dell EMC customers, partners, and employees who are considering the use
of the FAST VP and FAST Cache features in the Dell EMC Unity family of storage systems. It assumes
familiarity with Dell EMC Unity and Dell EMC’s management software.

Terminology
Chunk: A piece of data located within a particular 64 KB region.

DRAM memory: DRAM-based memory used by the storage system to store data.

FAST Cache clean page: A 64 KB FAST Cache page which is in use and contains data that is an exact copy
of the corresponding page within the Pool for the storage resource.

FAST Cache copy: The process of copying a FAST Cache dirty page to the corresponding storage resource.

FAST Cache dirty page: A 64 KB FAST Cache page which is in use and contains a newer copy of the data
than the corresponding page within the storage resource. These pages will be synchronized when the FAST
Cache page is cleaned.

FAST Cache flush: The process of freeing a FAST Cache page for a new promotion by first copying the
contents of a FAST Cache page to its storage resource, then freeing the page.

FAST Cache hit: The instance when the data being requested or updated is contained within FAST Cache.

FAST Cache miss: The instance when the data being requested or updated is not contained within FAST
Cache.

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Terminology

Fast Cache page: A single allocation unit (page) located within FAST Cache used to store data. This page is
64 KB in size.

FAST Cache promotion: The process of copying data from a storage resource into FAST Cache.

Flash drive (Solid-State Drive - SSD): A Flash-based storage device used to store data.

Hard Disk Drive (HDD): A storage device based on spinning platters used to store data.

Locality of reference: Used when describing a data access pattern where adjacent blocks of a dataset are
accessed frequently.

Logical Block Address (LBA): The addressing scheme used when accessing a particular block of data
within a storage resource.

Memory map: A FAST Cache component which tracks the current contents and locations of data within
FAST Cache. A copy of the memory map is storage within system memory and on the drives.

Pool: A set of drives that provide specific storage characteristics for the resources that use them, such as
LUNs, VMware Datastores, and File Systems.

Rebalance: A FAST VP process automatically started when unused drives are used to increase the capacity
a tier of storage within a Pool. The process relocates data to correct the imbalance of data placement across
the tier.

Slice: A 256 MB unit of capacity which is allocated to storage resources to provide space to store data.

Slice Relocation: A physical movement of a 256 MB slice of data within a tier or across tiers within a Pool.

Storage Resource: A LUN, VMware Datastore, vVol, or File System.

System Cache (DRAM Cache): Dell EMC Unity software component which leverages DRAM memory to
improve host read and write performance.

System Cache hit: The instance when a host I/O can be serviced with the contents of System Cache.

System Cache miss: The instance when a host I/O cannot be serviced with the contents of System Cache.

Temperature: The weighted average of a 256 MB Slice’s activity level over time.

Tier: A label used to describe the various categories of media used within a Pool. In a physical system, the
tier directly relates to the drive types used within the Pool. The available tiers are the Extreme Performance
Tier (Flash drives), the Performance Tier (SAS drives), and the Capacity Tier (NL-SAS drives). For UnityVSA,
the storage tier of a Virtual Drive must be entered manually and should be chosen to match the underlying
characteristics of the Virtual Drive.

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Technical support and resources

1 FAST VP

1.1 Introduction
When reviewing the access patterns for data within a system, most access patterns show a basic trend.
Typically, the data is most heavily accessed near the time it was created, and the activity level decreases as
the data ages. This trending is also referred to as the life cycle of the data. Dell EMC Unity Fully Automated
Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) monitors the data access patterns within Pools on the system,
and dynamically matches the performance requirements of the data with drives that provide that level of
performance. FAST VP separates drives into three categories, called tiers.

FAST VP helps to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by maintaining performance while efficiently
using the configuration of a Pool. Instead of creating a Pool with one type of drive, mixing Flash, SAS, and
NL-SAS drives can help reduce the cost of a configuration by reducing drive counts and leveraging larger
capacity drives. Data requiring the highest level of performance is tiered to Flash, while data with less activity
resides on SAS or NL-SAS drives.

Dell EMC Unity has a unified approach to creating storage resources on the system. Block LUNs, File
Systems, VMware Datastores, and VMware Virtual Volumes can all exist within a single Pool and can all
benefit from using FAST VP. In system configurations with minimal amounts of Flash, FAST VP will efficiently
use the Flash drives for active data, regardless of the resource type. For efficiency, FAST VP also leverages
low cost spinning drives for less active data. The access patterns for all data within a Pool are compared
against each other, and the most active data is placed on the highest performing drives while adhering to the
storage resource’s tiering policy. Tiering policies are explained later in this document.

1.2 FAST VP licensing

In Unity, FAST VP is included free with all licenses for Dell EMC Hybrid systems and the UnityVSA. When a
license is installed, the following FAST VP related features are available:

• The ability to create a Pool with multiple drive types

• The ability to set tiering policies on Block LUNs, File Systems, VMware Datastores, and VMware
Virtual Volumes
• The ability to access the FAST VP tab within the Pool properties window or a storage resource
properties window

1.3 Using FAST VP

1.3.1 Pools
A Pool is a set of drives on which storage resources are created. Pools can be created on all Dell EMC Unity
systems, including a Unity All Flash system, Unity Hybrid system, or the UnityVSA. In the Unity All Flash and
Hybrid systems, Pools are consisted of physical drives found within the system. In UnityVSA, Pools are
created on Virtual Drives, which have been provided from the VMware ESXi host the UnityVSA is deployed
on. Pools can contain a few drives or contain all drives within a system. FAST VP is the software feature
which helps to efficiently use the resources found within a Pool. A Pool can either contain a single drive type
or contain a mix of drive types.

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Technical support and resources

A Pool which only contains a single drive type is called a single tier Pool, also known as a Homogenous Pool.
A single tier Pool can contain either all Flash drives, all SAS drives, or all NL-SAS drives. Single tier Pools
provide predictable performance, as all drives within the Pool are of the same type. All data contained within a
single tier Pool has the same performance potential, regardless of the data’s age. Single tier Pools are best
used when data access is uniform across large address ranges.

A Pool which contains a mixture of drive types is called a multi-tiered Pool, also known as a Heterogeneous
Pool. A multi-tiered Pool can contain any combination of Flash, SAS, and NL-SAS drives. For example, a
Pool may contain all three drive types, another only containing Flash and NL-SAS, and a third containing SAS
and NL-SAS. In a multi-tiered Pool, data from storage resources are spread across the tiers by FAST VP in
256 MB slices. FAST VP monitors the usage of each tier and relocates data slices within the Pool based on
data access levels and capacity.

1.3.2 FAST VP tiers

When a Pool is created, each drive type within the Pool is assigned to a specific tier. Each tier provides a
different level of performance due to the drive type and number of drives within the tier. Each tier within a Pool
can also contain a different capacity of storage, allowing you to customize how much storage of each drive
type is allocated to the Pool. FAST VP has three categories which it separates drives into. These tiers are:

• Extreme Performance Tier: Consisted of Flash drives

• Performance Tier: Consisted of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives
• Capacity Tier: Consisted of Near-Line SAS (NL-SAS) drives

FAST VP differentiates each of these tiers by drive type, and not rotational speed. Dell EMC suggests not
mixing drives with different rotational speeds within a tier of a Pool. For example, do not mix 10K RPM and 15
K RPM SAS drives within the same Pool. It is suggested to allocate these drives to different Pools. It is OK
however to mix 10K RPM SAS drives in a Pool with 7.2 K RPM NL-SAS drives as they are different drive
types and will exist in different tiers.

FAST VP leverages all tiers within a Pool, as each tier provides unique advantages regarding performance
and cost.

1.3.3 Pool tier RAID configurations

When creating a Pool, you can customize the RAID protection for each of the tiers being configured on a per-
tier basis. A single RAID protection is chosen for each tier, and once the RAID protection is selected and the
Pool is created, the RAID protection cannot be changed. When expanding a Pool to include a new drive type,
you can select a RAID protection then. Table 1 shows the different RAID configurations that are supported for
each tier. When creating a Pool, drives must be added in multiples of the chosen RAID configuration.

Supported RAID Types and Drive Configurations

RAID Type Default Configuration Supported Configurations

RAID 1/0 4+4 1+11, 2+2, 3+3, 4+4

RAID 5 4+1 4+1, 8+1, 12+1
RAID 6 6+2 4+2, 6+2, 8+2, 10+2, 12+2, 14+2
1RAID 1/0 (1+1) is RAID 1.

When deciding on which RAID Configuration to use, consider the performance, capacity, and protection levels
each configuration provides. RAID 1/0 is suggested for applications with large amounts of random writes, as

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Technical support and resources

there is no parity write penalty in this RAID type. RAID 5 is preferred when cost and performance are a
concern. RAID 6 provides the maximum level of protection against drive faults of all the supported RAID
types. When considering a RAID configuration which includes many drives, (12+1, 12+2, 14+2), consider the
tradeoffs that the larger drive counts contain, such as the fault domain and potentially long rebuild times.

1.3.3.1 The Extreme Performance Tier

The Extreme Performance tier is most often used for storing data that is response time sensitive and requires
a high level of performance. Flash drives are used in an Extreme Performance Tier as they have low latency
and outperform the other supported drive types on the system. As Flash drives do not use spinning platters,
seek latency seen with rotating drives is entirely avoided, which makes Flash a great choice for random
access workloads.

When creating a Pool, it is suggested to add Flash drives to the configuration. Even a small amount of Flash
capacity added to a Pool can be leveraged by FAST VP to increase the overall performance of the system.
For the best return on investment, use Flash drives to store hot data on storage resources requiring fast
response times and high IOPs. FAST VP will optimize the entire Pool’s resources and automatically relocate
less active data to other tiers as needed.

The Extreme Performance Tier can be created using SAS Flash 2, SAS Flash 3 or SAS Flash 4 Flash drives.
While it is possible to mix different size SAS Flash drives within the same Pool, it is not recommended. In the
Unity OE version 4.1 and later, SAS Flash 3 drives can be used in hybrid (mixed drive type) pools. SAS Flash
4 drives within a Unity system are only supported in an All Flash Pool.

1.3.3.2 The Performance Tier

The Performance Tier provides high, all-around performance with consistent response times, high I/O, and
good bandwidth at a midlevel price point. The Performance tier contains SAS drives, which provide high
levels of performance, reliability, and capacity. SAS drive technology is based on rotating mechanical hard
drive technology which uses magnetic platters to store data. The Performance Tier can be created using 15 K
RPM or 10 K RPM SAS drives. Though it is possible, mixing SAS drives with different speed within a Pool is
not suggested.

1.3.3.3 The Capacity Tier

The Capacity Tier is a tier of storage within a Pool consisted of large capacity, low cost 7.2 K RPM NL-SAS
drives. By leveraging NL-SAS drives, the Capacity Tier helps to lower the cost per GB of a Pool. The Capacity
Tier is used by FAST VP to store data which is primarily static, and not accessed often. It is best used for data
that does not have a strict performance requirement. As data ages, and the activity level decreases, more
data considered “cold” by FAST VP will be tiered to the Capacity Tier.

1.3.4 Tier considerations

While FAST VP handles the placement of data within a Pool based on data access patterns and storage
efficiency, it is good to understand the differences between the multiple tier categories. The following table,
Table 2, outlines the main differences between the Tiers and the drives that consist of them.

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Technical support and resources

Comparison of the Extreme Performance Tier, Performance Tier, and Capacity Tier
Extreme Performance (Flash) Performance (SAS) Capacity (NL-SAS)

User Response Time

<1 millisecond – 5 milliseconds ≈5 milliseconds 7 millisecond – 10 milliseconds
Multi-Access Response Time
Performance

10 millisecond – 50
< 10 milliseconds ≤ 100 milliseconds
milliseconds
Low IOPs/GB
High IOPs/GB High Bandwidth with
Low Latency contending workloads Leverages System Cache for
sequential and large block I/O

Extremely fast access for reads Sequential reads leverage prefetching of data
Strengths

Handles multiple sequential Sequential writes leverage system optimizations favoring drive
workloads better than SAS or NL- Read/write mixes provide
SAS Large I/O is serviced efficiently
predictable performance
Writes perform slower than reads
Observations

Heavy concurrent writes affect read

Other

performance Long response times typically

seen for heavy write workloads
Single-threaded, large, sequential
I/O performance equivalent to
SAS

1.4 FAST VP tiering policies

FAST VP is a software feature which monitors each Pool within the system and makes tiering choices for data
within each of the Pools. Each storage resource created on a Pool also has settings which can impact how
FAST VP tiers the data. This setting is called a tiering policy. At time of creation in Unisphere, CLI, or REST
API, you can specify a tiering policy for storage resources being created on a Pool. This tiering policy
determines which tier the resource’s data will initially be placed in, and how the 256 MB slices of data for the
resource will be relocated within the Pool. FAST VP runs on a customizable schedule or can be manually
started at any time. The tiering of data is based on statistics gathered hourly on the Pool. This will be
discussed further in The FAST VP Algorithm section of this paper.

1.4.1 Tiering policy options

FAST VP is an automated feature which uses user specified tiering policies to meet performance goals based
on the storage resource. Relocations occur on 256 MB blocks of data, called slices, which provide storage to
each resource created on the Pool. FAST VP bases relocation decisions on an algorithm which considers the
activity level of each slice, and the resource’s tiering policy. The algorithm then orders the slices based on
rank, which will later be used during the relocation window. This process is repeated hourly, and a data
movement candidate list is created for all Pools within the system.

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Technical support and resources

The following are the available Tiering Policies for storage resources created on Pool in Dell EMC Unity.

• Highest Available Tier

• Auto-Tier
• Start High then Auto-Tier (Default/Recommended)
• Lowest Available Tier

All Tiering Policies can be set at time of resource creation or changed later.

1.4.1.1 Highest Available Tier

The Highest Available Tier tiering policy is designed to prioritize the placement of slices for the assigned
storage resource over others within the Pool. It is suggested to be used when performance and minimal
response times are a priority. Using this tiering policy does not require the data to be highly accessed but
helps to provide the best performance when the data is accessed. Slices used for the resources with Highest
Available Tier assigned to it will be taken from the highest tier with available space when slices are needed.

If the highest tier in the Pool does not have any space, space from the next tier with available space will be
taken. Slices are prioritized in the following manner:

• Existing slices on the highest tier of a Pool have priority over new slices being consumed for storage
resources. New slice allocations do not immediately force slices out of the highest tier, regardless of
the tiering policy set on the resource. This priority is revisited during the next FAST VP relocation
window.
• When multiple resources have the Highest Available Tier policy assigned, and there is not enough
space within the top tier to store all data slices, they compete for top tier placement based on each
slice’s temperature. The temperature is based on the activity level of the slice. Slices for resources
with Highest Available Tier assigned always take top tier priority over other tiering policies.

1.4.1.2 Auto-Tier
A storage resource tends to contain regions which have higher activity levels than others. To efficiently use
the tiers within a Pool, FAST VP will move the “hot” slices to the higher tiers, while placing less active data on
lower tiers of the Pool. The Auto-Tier policy automatically places slices of data for the storage resource on the
various tiers of a Pool based on the data’s usage level. Although a slice for a storage resource with Auto-Tier
assigned may be more active than a resource with Highest Available Tier assigned, the resource with Highest
Available Tier takes precedence. When allocating new slices to a storage resource, slices are taken from all
tiers based on the usage of each tier. If a large portion of a Pool’s free space resides in the Capacity Tier,
slices will be allocated from the Capacity Tier.

1.4.1.3 Start High then Auto-Tier (Default/Recommended)

Start High then Auto-Tier is not only default tiering policy when creating a storage resource, but it is also the
Dell EMC recommended policy. When allocating slices to a storage resource, this policy assigns slices from
the highest tier with available space in the Pool. For existing slices for resources using the Start High then
Auto-Tier policy, it uses the Auto-Tier tiering policy. FAST VP relocates the slices based on performance
statistics of the slice, and the auto-tiering algorithm. This tiering policy maximizes initial performance by taking
slices from the highest tier with available space, while also efficiently using the storage and tiering existing
slices with lower activity levels to the lower tiers. This allows other slices to use the higher tiers, which helps
to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership of the configuration. This tiering policy is recommended when activity
on a storage resource has a skew.

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1.4.1.4 Lowest Available Tier

When using this policy, new slices for a resource will be assigned from the lowest tier with free capacity. This
policy is recommended for resources that are not performance sensitive or response time sensitive.
Regardless of the activity level for the slices assigned to resources with this policy, all slices will remain in the
lowest available tiers. If the lowest tier within a Pool does not have free capacity, all slices for resources with
this tiering policy assigned to it will be compared. The slices with the lowest activity will have priority to reside
on the lowest tier of the Pool.

1.4.2 Comparing the tiering policies

The following table, Table 3, summarizes the various Tiering Policies in Dell EMC Unity.

Dell EMC Unity Tiering Policies

Tiering Policy Corresponding Initial Tier Placement Description

Initial data placement and

subsequent data relocations set
Highest Available Tier Highest Available Tier
to the highest performing tier of
drives with available space
Initial data placement optimizes
Pool capacity, then relocates
Auto-Tier Optimized for Pool Performance
slices to different tiers based on
the activity levels of the slices
Initial data placed on slices from the
highest tier with available space,
Start High then
Highest Available Tier then relocates data based on
Auto-Tier (Default)
performance statistics and slice
activity
Initial data placement and
subsequent relocations preferred
Lowest Available Tier Lowest Available Tier
on the lowest tier with available
space.

1.5 The FAST VP algorithm

The FAST VP algorithm uses multiple strategies to improve the overall performance of the system, efficiently
use the capacity of each Pool, and reduce the Total Cost of Ownership. These processes identify and
relocate slices to appropriate tiers based on statistics collected on each slice, analysis of the data, and the
relocation operation based on the activity levels of each slice. Each slice contains 256 MBs of data, which is
the granularity of FAST VP.

FAST VP also attempts to free space within each tier to allow for new slice allocations or slice promotions.
Leaving 10% free capacity in each tier allows FAST VP to be more efficient when tiering slices to higher tiers.
If needed, during a relocation window least recently used slices within the tier will be tiered to lower tiers to
reach the 10% free capacity target.

1.5.1 Statistics Collection

The activity level of a slice within a Pool is often referred to as the temperature of the slice, and terms “Hot”
and “Cold” are often used to describe how active the slices are. When comparing multiple slices, a slice which
has more activity than another is considered “Hotter”, and the one with less activity is considered “Colder”.

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Technical support and resources

The activity of a slice is determined by tracking the amount of I/O that is sent to each slice, which includes
both reads and writes. FAST VP keeps these statistics and “weighs” the I/O based on the time of arrival.
Recent activity on a slice receives a higher weight, and the weight deteriorates over time. The slice statistics
are collected continuously on the system for all storage resources.

1.5.2 Analysis
Once an hour, FAST VP analyzes the data collected and ranks each slice, based on each slice’s temperature.
This list is ordered from “Hottest” to “Coldest”, and lists are created for each Pool within the system. Based on
this list, a relocation candidate list is compiled with information regarding which slices should be moved up,
moved down, or moved within a tier in a Pool. This candidate list also considers each storage resource’s
tiering policy, to ensure each policy is being followed. The next time a relocation is started, either by the
schedule or manually, the latest candidate list is used. You can influence the candidate list by changing the
tiering policies on storage resources, as the tiering policy takes precedence over the activity levels of slices.

1.5.3 Relocation
When a relocation window starts, either by the schedule or manually, FAST VP begins promoting or demoting
slices according to the candidate list created in the analysis phase. The hottest slices are moved to the higher
tiers, and colder slices are moved down to the lower tiers. During the relocation window, priority is given to
slices moving to the higher tiers, as they will benefit most from the relocation. For slices relocating to a lower
tier, relocations only occur when slices being promoted need the space it occupies. By leveraging the space
available, FAST VP ensures that top tier drives are used.

Storage resources with a tiering policy of Lowest Available Tier may also relocate during a FAST VP
relocation window. If slices for these resources do not already reside on the lowest tier, and space becomes
available on the lowest tier, relocations may occur. Only the “Coldest” slices for storage resources with the
Lowest Available Tier policy will be stored on the lowest tier if not enough capacity exists for all slices.

Another factor for relocations is tier capacity. FAST VP will also review the capacity of a tier to make
relocation decisions. If a tier has less than 10% of free space, “Cold” slices will be tiered down to free enough
space to reach the 10% mark. Leaving free capacity in each tier allows storage resources to allocate slices
efficiently based on their tiering policies. The free capacity is also used when slices are relocated into higher
tiers when the relocation window starts. Using free space within a tier is more efficient on the system than
relocating slices from a tier before relocating slices into a tier.

Figure 1 shows an illustration of how FAST VP can improve the performance of the Pool by relocating slices.
On the left is a Storage Pool before FAST VP relocations have occurred. Notice that slices across each of the
tiers have different levels of activity. After analyzing the activity on these slices, FAST VP will determine the
best placement for the data within the Pool. The right side of Figure 1 shows the Pool after relocations have
occurred. Notice that activity levels have been corrected, and slices have been placed on the appropriate
tiers.

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FAST VP Slice Relocations

1.6 Managing FAST VP

The following sections outline how to manage FAST VP.

1.6.1 UnityVSA
As UnityVSA is a virtual Dell EMC Unity system, no physical drives exist. Pools on a UnityVSA system are
created using Virtual Drives, which have been provisioned to the system from VMware. As there is a layer of
abstraction between the UnityVSA system and the storage providing capacity for the Virtual Drives, FAST VP
cannot automatically differentiate and assign the proper Storage Tier for each Virtual Drive. You must
manually assign the Storage Tier to each Virtual Drive before they can be used within a Pool. Correctly
matching the Storage Tier to the type of technology the Virtual Drive is created on is a crucial step, as FAST
VP will use this information when tiering slices within the Pool. Typical Dell EMC tier classification denotes
Flash drives to be “Extreme Performance”, SAS drives to be “Performance”, and NL-SAS drives to be
“Capacity”. Dell Technologies recommends adhering to this schema to ensure FAST VP relocates data to the
appropriate Virtual Drives.

Figure 2 below shows the Tier Assignment step, which only exists in the Create Pool Wizard within the
UnityVSA. In this step, you must specify the Storage Tier for each Virtual Drive that will be used in the Pool.
To do so, click the pencil icon located in the Storage Tier column, and select the appropriate Storage Tier
label. Once the Storage Tier is specified for a Virtual Drive, and the Virtual Drive is added to a Pool, the
Storage Tier cannot be changed. If many Virtual Drives exist in the UnityVSA, but only a subset of them will
be used at this time, you will not need to assign a Storage Tier to Virtual Drives that will be left unused.

To differentiate between the Virtual Drives on the system, match the SCSI ID of the Virtual Drive in Unisphere
to the SCSI ID of the Hard Drives in VMware. For more information about Dell EMC UnityVSA, please see the
Dell EMC Unity: UnityVSA white paper on Dell EMC Online Support.

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UnityVSA Create Pool Wizard. Tier Assignment step.

1.6.2 System level FAST VP management

To configure FAST VP in Unisphere, select the Update system settings icon, which is displayed as a gear
icon on the top bar of Unisphere. Clicking this icon will open the Settings window. In this window, many of the
system settings can be configured. For FAST VP, select Storage Configuration in the left pane, then select
FAST VP. Figure 3 shows an example of the FAST VP Settings page.

Settings Window. Storage Configuration – FAST VP. FAST VP Settings.

On this page, you can customize the FAST VP settings. Near the top of the page is the Data Relocation
Status. In Figure 3 above, the status is Active, which means FAST VP is active on the system. You can
pause all automatic and manual data relocations on the system by clicking the Pause button at any time.
While the status is Paused, the button will say Resume. Resuming will resume all paused relocations on the
system.

Below the Data relocation status is the Data relocation rate. By clicking the pencil icon, you can change the
relocation rate to either High, Medium, or Low. High uses the most system resources to relocate data, while
Low uses the least. The default relocation rate is Medium.

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In the middle of the FAST VP Settings page, shown in Figure 3, Schedule data relocation displays whether
or not the system is scheduled for relocations to occur. If this shows “No”, all data relocations must be
manually started by the user. The Relocation Window is shown next. This displays which days of the week
relocations are schedule for, and the Start and End times for the relocation window. By default, relocations
are scheduled daily, between 5 PM local time to the system, and 1 AM of the next day. Clicking the Modify
data relocation schedule link allows you to customize the relocations schedule further.

Lastly on the FAST VP Setting page is the Amount of scheduled data to relocate and the Estimated
scheduled relocation time. This gives you an idea how much data needs to move on the system based on
the FAST VP algorithm, and the amount of time it will take based on the relocation rate. In this example, a
large amount of data needs to move up, move down, and move within a Pool’s tier.

Shown in Figure 4 is the window that appears after selecting the Modify data relocation schedule link
shown in Figure 3. In this window, you can check or clear the Schedule data relocations checkbox to enable
or disable FAST VP from running on a schedule. Below this are checkboxes for each day of the week. To
have FAST VP relocations run on a particular day, ensure that day’s corresponding checkbox is checked. By
default, FAST VP is scheduled to run on every day of the week. You have to ability to customize which days
relocation runs on, and which days to avoid.

Also shown are the Start time and End time for FAST VP relocations. To customize the start or end time,
change the values within the boxes and click OK. FAST VP will attempt to complete all relocations within this
time period, and if this is not possible, all non-complete relocations are stopped from running. The next time
FAST VP runs will be based on a new relocation priority list.

Modify data relocation schedule window.

1.6.3 Pool level FAST VP management

To configure FAST VP settings on a Pool in Unisphere, review the FAST VP tab within a Pool’s properties
window. An Example of the tab can be found in Figure 5. On this tab, you can enable or disable FAST VP
from running on this Pool by editing the Data relocations scheduled setting. To do so, click the pencil icon
and change the setting. To the right of this is a link labeled Manage FAST VP system settings. Selecting
this link redirects you to the FAST VP system settings page in Unisphere.

Also shown in this tab is Relocation information specific to this Pool. In Figure 5, you can see that the
relocation Status is Active. This means relocations are running on this Pool.

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A full list of Status information is shown below:

• Paused: Data relocation is paused on the system.

• Active: Pool is actively relocating data.
• Not Started: Data relocations have not been started on the Pool.
• Completed: Data relocations have completed for the Pool.
• Stopped by user: Relocations have been manually stopped by the user.
• Failed: Data relocations have failed for the Pool.
• Not Applicable: No applicable information for FAST VP exists for the Pool.

The estimated Time to relocate the data on the Pool, displayed in hours and minutes, is also displayed.
From this page, you can also see the Last start time and Last end time for relocations within this Pool. You
will also notice a button below this information that says either Start Relocation or Stop Relocation. If
relocations are occurring on the Pool, you can stop them at any time by clicking the Stop Relocation button.
If relocations are not running, the button would say Start Relocation, and you could select it to start a
relocation on the Pool.

In the bottom of the FAST VP tab is the Pool’s Tier information. As shown in Figure 5, each Tier configured
within this Pool is displayed, along with how many drives and which RAID type is used for the Pool. Also, in
the chart is information regarding how much data per tier needs to Move Up, Move Down, and Rebalance
within the tier. Each of the totals are displayed in GBs. In this example, a large amount of data is being
relocated across tiers. Lastly, the chart displays the Total Size and Free Size, both in TBs for each tier within
the Pool. From this chart, you can see the configuration, the scheduled relocations, and the total and free
capacity for the Pool.

Pool Properties. FAST VP tab.

When available, the Start Relocation button brings you to the Start Data Relocation window, shown in
Figure 6. From this window you can choose the Data relocation rate, either High, Medium, or Low, and
choose and End time for relocations. By default, the end time is 2 hours from the local time within the system.
After changing settings within the window, click OK to start relocations manually on the Pool.

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Start Data Relocation window.

1.6.4 Storage resource level FAST VP management

When creating a storage resource, you can customize the Tiering Policy that the resource will use. Figure 7
shows an example of the Configure step within the Create LUNs wizard. In this step, you can choose which
tiering policy the resource will use. By default, the Tiering Policy will be Start High then Auto-Tier. Other
choices include Auto-Tier, Highest Available Tier, and Lowest Available Tier.

Create LUNs wizard. Configure step.

You can also change FAST VP settings on a storage resource after it has been created. Figure 8 shows an
example of the FAST VP tab within the LUN Properties window. From here, you can change the FAST VP
Tiering policy for the resource at any time by selecting another one from the drop-down list. Also shown are
the Tiers within the Pool, and the resources Data Distribution across those tiers. In this example, 26% of the
LUN’s data resides on the Extreme Performance Tier, 50% resides on the Performance Tier, and 24%
resides on the Capacity Tier.

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LUN properties window. FAST VP tab.

1.6.5 Expanding a Pool

At any time, a Pool can be expanded in Unisphere by selecting the Expand Pool option in the Pools page in
Unisphere. The location of the Expand Pool option can be seen in Figure 9. This will launch the Expand Pool
wizard, which allows you to select which drives to add to the selected Pool. When expanding a Pool, you can
either add a new tier to the Pool or add drives to an existing tier.

Unisphere Pools page.

Figure 10 below shows the Pool Properties Window after expanding a Pool. The Pool was expanded by
adding drives to the Extreme Performance Tier. Once a tier is expanded, a rebalance is started to spread
the existing data within the tier across all drives within the tier. In the Rebalance column, notice a double
arrow is displayed with the amount of data to rebalance.

Pool Properties. FAST VP tab after expanding a pool.

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2 FAST Cache

2.1 Introduction
The Dell EMC Unity FAST software includes FAST Cache and FAST VP. FAST Cache uses flash drives as
an additional cache layer within the system to temporarily store highly accessed data. For data not already
located on Flash, the system copies the highly accessed 64 KB chunks of data from their current locations on
spinning drives to FAST Cache. Repeated access to this data will benefit by taking advantage of the high
IOPs and low response times Flash drives provide. As FAST Cache is a global resource on the system, all
data can benefit from this caching layer and the overall performance of the system can increase. When a
piece of data located on a spinning drive is marked for promotion into FAST Cache and there are currently no
free FAST Cache pages, FAST Cache will free a page by removing the Least Recently Used (LRU) chunk of
data. If the data being removed from FAST Cache is dirty, meaning the data has not been synchronized with
the location on the Pool, the data is first copied back to its location on the drives before being removed from
FAST Cache.

2.2 FAST Cache Licensing

In Dell EMC Unity, FAST Cache is only supported on a Unity Hybrid system. FAST Cache is included free
with all licenses for Dell EMC Hybrid systems. Once the system license is installed, FAST Cache may be
created up to the limits of the system, which are discussed later in this document.

2.3 FAST Cache Components

FAST Cache consists of multiple hardware and software components, including the drives, the Policy Engine,
and the Memory Map. To create FAST Cache, you must first have at least two drives supported for use in
FAST Cache available in the system. FAST Cache is configured using RAID 1 mirrored pairs, and only
configuring FAST Cache drives in multiples of two is supported. Supported drives and system limits are
outlined in the Supported Drives and Configurations section of this paper. The Policy Engine and Memory
Map are defined below.

2.3.1 Policy Engine

The FAST Cache Policy Engine is the software which monitors and manages the I/O flow through FAST
Cache. The Policy Engine keeps statistical information about blocks on the system and determines what data
is a candidate for promotion. A chunk is marked for promotion when an eligible block is accessed from
spinning drives three times within a short period of time. The block is then copied to FAST Cache and the
Memory Map is updated. More information about which data is eligible for FAST Cache promotion is
discussed later in this document.

2.3.2 Memory Map

The FAST Cache Memory Map contains information of all 64 KB blocks of data currently residing in FAST
Cache. Each time a promotion occurs, or a block is replaced in FAST Cache, the Memory Map is updated.
The Memory Map resides in DRAM memory and on the system drives to maintain high availability. When an
I/O reaches FAST Cache to be completed, the Memory Map is checked, and the I/O is either redirected to a
location in FAST Cache or to the Pool to be serviced.

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2.4 Theory of Operation

2.4.1 FAST Cache promotions

A FAST Cache Promotion is the operation of copying data from spinning media Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) to a
location within FAST Cache. This operation is labeled as a promotion due to the block of data being copied
into higher performing drives due to its access pattern. While the block of data is in FAST Cache, the data still
resides in its original location within the Pool. The data residing within the Pool is periodically updated during
a FAST Cache Cleaning operation or a FAST Cache flush, both described later in this document. A FAST
Cache promotion is only considered on Pools with FAST Cache enabled.

A FAST Cache promotion occurs when the Policy Engine determines the performance for a chunk of data
would benefit by residing in FAST Cache. While the Policy Engine is monitoring the I/O to FAST Cache
enabled Pools, data access patterns are reviewed. When a chunk of data is accessed three times within a
certain period of time, the eligibility of the block is checked, and the block is marked for promotion into FAST
Cache. If there are free FAST Cache blocks available, the data is copied into FAST Cache. If FAST Cache is
full, the access pattern of the data being considered for promotion is compared to the access pattern of data
in FAST Cache. If the access pattern of the data considered for promotion exceeds that of a chunk of data in
FAST Cache, the least accessed data in FAST Cache is flushed out of FAST Cache and the new promotion
replaces it. The Memory Map is then updated to include all changes to the contents of FAST Cache. The next
time the promoted block is accessed, assuming System Cache could not complete the I/O, the FAST Cache
Memory Map will be checked and the I/O will be serviced from FAST Cache. While promoted into FAST
Cache, the chunk of data has the potential for higher overall throughput and lower Response Time. When a
large portion of a dataset resides in FAST Cache, applications can also benefit with the increased
performance FAST Cache can provide.

There are multiple circumstances in which the access pattern of an application is assumed to cause a FAST
Cache promotion, but it does not occur. In some cases, the efficiencies in system cache are more suited to
handle the I/O, while other times the configuration or location of the data stops the promotion. Some of these
circumstances are:

• FAST Cache is not enabled on the system or Pool

In this instance, FAST Cache is not running on the resource, so no FAST Cache promotions will
occur.
• The data currently resides on Flash Drives with a Pool
FAST Cache will not promote data which is already serviced from Flash.
• Small block sequential I/O
System Cache within the Dell EMC Unity system is optimized to handle sequential I/O. When a
sequential workload is identified, prefetching larger blocks of data into System Cache is done to
increase the performance of the workload. The larger I/Os to the drives helps avoid FAST Cache
promotions from occurring.
• High-frequency access patterns
Data which is accessed frequently enough to continually reside in System Cache will not be promoted
to FAST Cache. As the I/O is continuously serviced from System Cache, I/O is not issued to the Pool
to cause a FAST Cache promotion.
• Zero fill requests
Zero fill requests are typically a one-time occurrence and will be handled by System Cache. System
Cache will coalesce the I/O into large I/Os which tend to avoid promotion into FAST Cache.
• I/O sizes larger than the stripe length

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FAST Cache promotions are avoided when I/O sizes exceed the RAID configuration’s stripe length.
For example, in an 8+1 RAID 5 configuration, I/Os above 512 KB (8x64KB) in size will not cause
promotions.

2.4.2 Read Operations

When a read is sent to the system, the contents of System Cache is reviewed to determine if the I/O can be
completed. If the data being requested resides in System Cache, the I/O is completed from the data currently
residing in System Cache. The Pool is not sent an I/O request, and the Fast Cache Memory Map is not
checked.

If System Cache cannot complete the I/O, a System Cache miss occurs. If FAST Cache is enabled, the
Memory Map is reviewed to see if the contents of FAST Cache can complete the I/O. If the data resides in
FAST Cache, the I/O is redirected to the location within FAST Cache the data resides, the data is copied into
System Cache, and the read request is completed.

When the data being requested is not currently located in FAST Cache, the data must be requested from the
drive the data resides on. The data is then copied from the drive to System Cache, and the read operation
completes with the requestor of the information. If the data has been accessed frequently, the Policy Engine
will cause a promotion to occur and the data will be copied into FAST Cache. Subsequent requests for this
information will either come from System Cache or FAST Cache.

Figure 11 shows a read operation.

1. The Unity system receives a Read operation.

2. If the data being requested is located in System Cache, the I/O is
complete using the contents of System Cache. This is also known
as a System Cache hit.
3. If System Cache does not contain the data requested, this is known
as a System Cache miss. If FAST Cache is enabled, the FAST
Cache Memory Map is reviewed to determine if the data being
requested resides in FAST Cache.
4. If the data resides in FAST Cache, a FAST Cache hit is seen. The
information is then copied into System Cache, and System Cache
completes the Read request.
5. If a FAST Cache miss is seen, the data is requested from the Pool,
and is copied into System Cache. System Cache then completes the
Read request.
6. The FAST Cache Policy Engine promotes the data into FAST Cache
and updates the Memory Map if the data has been accessed
frequently.

Read operation.

2.4.3 Write Operations

In Dell EMC Unity, all write operations to the system are completed using System Cache. The system accepts
the write request into System Cache, and an acknowledgment is sent to the host. No interaction with FAST
Cache happens during this time. Write Cache on a Dell EMC Unity system cannot be disabled by the user
and is enabled in almost all circumstances.

If Write Cache on the system becomes disabled, writes to the system will need to be saved on the Pool
before the write operation can be acknowledged. During this operation, the data is temporarily held in System
Cache, while the data is saved to the Pool. If FAST Cache is enabled, the Memory Map is reviewed to see if a

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copy of the data resides in FAST Cache. If so, the data in FAST Cache is updated and the write operation is
acknowledged. If the data does not reside in FAST Cache, a write to the Pool occurs and the write is
acknowledged. This write to the Pool may cause a FAST Cache promotion to occur.

1. A write operation is received by the system while Write

Cache is disabled. The data is temporarily held in System
Cache while the data is saved to the system.
2. When FAST Cache is enabled, the contents of the Memory
Map are reviewed to determine if a copy of the data being
updated resides in FAST Cache.
3. If the data resides in FAST Cache, the data is copied from
System Cache to FAST Cache.
4. If a copy of the data does not reside in FAST Cache, the
data is written directly to the Pool.
5. The write is acknowledged once the data resides either in
FAST Cache or within the Pool.
6. A FAST Cache promotion may occur if the block is
accessed frequently.

Write operation.

In the instance when System Cache is proactively cleaning cache pages or flushing cache pages, outlined in
Figure 13 below, updates to FAST Cache may be seen. During this operation, the FAST Cache Memory Map
is reviewed to determine if the data being overwritten resides in FAST Cache. If the data is located within
FAST Cache, the data being cleaned from System Cache is synchronized with the contents of FAST Cache.
As FAST Cache now contains data which is newer than what resides on the Pool, the data is considered dirty.
This is also known as a FAST Cache dirty page. This data will be synchronized with the data on the Pool
when a FAST Cache page cleaning operation occurs. If FAST Cache does not contain a copy of the data
being updated, the data is written directly to the Pool drives. This operation may cause a FAST Cache
Promotion to occur.

1. During a System Cache page cleaning or page flushing

operation, the FAST Cache Memory Map is reviewed if
FAST Cache is enabled.
2. If a copy of the data resides in FAST Cache, System Cache
will update the data block in FAST Cache with the latest
information.
3. If the data does not reside in FAST Cache, System Cache
will write the data to the Pool directly.
4. If the data is accessed frequently, the write operation may
cause the data to be promoted to FAST Cache. If a
promotion occurs, the data is copied to FAST Cache and the
Memory Map is updated.

System Cache cleaning operation.

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2.4.4 FAST Cache page cleaning

FAST Cache page cleaning occurs when FAST Cache needs to synchronize the contents of a FAST Cache
page with the data’s location in the Pool. This happens when FAST Cache has more recently updated data
than the Pool. Cleaning occurs to reduce the amount of FAST Cache dirty pages. When page cleaning starts,
a 64 KB FAST Cache page is copied to the Pool in the corresponding location for the data. Once the data is
written and the contents of FAST Cache and the Pool are identical, the page in FAST Cache is marked as
clean. The data remains in FAST Cache for future use.

For FAST Cache promotions to occur efficiently, FAST Cache free or clean pages need to exist. If no free or
clean pages exist, a page cleaning operation needs to happen before the page can be freed for the next
promotion to occur. When a promotion is scheduled, pages are used in the following order:

1. Consume a free, unused FAST Cache page.

2. If no free page exists, remove the data from the Least Recently Used clean page, and use the page
for the scheduled promotion.
3. If no free or clean pages exist, copy the contents of the Least Recently Used page to the Pool, free
the page, and use the page for the promotion. Cleaning a FAST Cache Dirty page and freeing it for a
promotion is also called a FAST Cache flush operation.

2.4.5 FAST Cache Online Expand

Dell EMC Unity allows users to increase the configured size of FAST Cache online, without impacting FAST
Cache operations on the system. Online expansion gives users the option of first configuring FAST Cache
with a minimal amount of drives, and growing the configuration as demands on the system are increased. To
expand FAST Cache, free drives of the same size and type currently used in FAST Cache must exist within
the system. FAST Cache is expanded in pairs of drives and can be expanded up to the system maximum.

When a FAST Cache expansion occurs, a background operation is started to add the new drives into FAST
Cache. This operation first configures a pair of drives into a RAID 1 mirrored set. The capacity from this set is
then added to FAST Cache and is available for future promotions. These operations are repeated for all
remaining drives being added to FAST Cache. During these operations, all FAST Cache reads, writes, and
promotions occur without being impacted by the expansion. The amount of time the expand operation takes
to complete depends on the size of drives used in FAST Cache and the number of drives being added to the
configuration.

2.4.6 FAST Cache Online Shrink

Removing drives from FAST Cache is possible while FAST Cache is configured and servicing I/O. If at any
time drives need to be removed from FAST Cache, a shrink operation can be started. FAST Cache shrink is
issued in pairs of drives and allows the removal of all but two drives from FAST Cache. To remove all drives
from FAST Cache, the Delete operation is used. FAST Cache shrink is often used when drives need to be
repurposed to a Pool for expanded capacity. Removing drives from FAST Cache can be a lengthy operation,
which can impact system performance.

When a FAST Cache shrink occurs, a background operation is started to remove drives from the current
FAST Cache configuration. Removing drives from FAST Cache reduces the size of FAST Cache by the
number of drives selected. After starting a shrink operation, new promotions are blocked to each pair of drives
selected by the system to be removed from FAST Cache. Next, each FAST Cache dirty page within the drives
to be removed is cleaned to ensure that data is synchronized with the locations on the Pool. After all dirty
pages are cleaned within a set of drives, the capacity of the set is removed from the FAST Cache

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configuration. Data which existed on FAST Cache drives that were removed may be promoted to FAST
Cache again through the normal promotion mechanism.

2.5 FAST Cache Management

The following sections outline the steps to create FAST Cache, view the current FAST Cache configuration on
the system, expand FAST Cache, shrink FAST Cache, and delete FAST Cache. Examples for each of the
operations will be shown in Unisphere, though they can also be completed using Unisphere CLI or REST API.

2.5.1 Configuring FAST Cache

To configure FAST Cache in Unisphere, select the Update system settings icon, which is displayed as a gear
icon on the top bar of Unisphere. Clicking this icon will open the Settings window. In this window, many of the
system settings can be configured. For FAST Cache, select Storage Configuration in the left pane, then
select FAST Cache. When FAST Cache is not configured on the system, you will see what is shown in Figure
14. To configure FAST Cache, click Create.

Setting window. Storage Configuration – FAST Cache. FAST Cache not configured.

The Drives step of the Create FAST Cache wizard is now shown. Figure 15 shows an example of what is
seen when a single drive size and type is present in the system that is supported for use in FAST Cache.
FAST Cache can only be created using drives of the same size. If multiple supported drive sizes are within
the system, a radio icon is displayed before each drive size in the list. To select a certain drive size to use for
FAST Cache, select the radio icon in front of the wanted drive size. Next, click the drop-down box and select
the number of drives you will use for FAST Cache.

At this time FAST Cache enabled on all existing Pools on the system. FAST Cache is a global resource,
which can be used by all Pools within the system. The Enable FAST Cache for existing pools checkbox is
checked by default and can be cleared before proceeding. To change the FAST Cache setting for a Pool,
view the General tab within the Pool Properties window. After selecting the wanted drive size and the number
of drives to use in FAST Cache, click the Next button.

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Create FAST Cache wizard. Disks step.

The Summary step for the Create FAST Cache Wizard is now displayed, and an example of this screen can
be seen in Figure 16. This screen displays the choices made in the previous step and allows you to confirm
the proper selections were made. If the incorrect drive size was selected, or you want to change the number
of drives selected, you can select the Back button to correct the information. After reviewing this screen and
confirming the correct information is displayed, select Finish to create FAST Cache with these settings.

Create FAST Cache wizard. Summary step.

The Results step for the Create FAST Cache Wizard is now shown. The overall status of the FAST Cache
creation is shown, along with each job and its status. Figure 17 shows an example of this window when all
processes are complete. For each pair of drives, a RAID 1 RAID Group is created, and the capacity of the
group is added to FAST Cache. Once capacity is added to FAST Cache, FAST Cache is enabled and
available for data promotions. A process is also started to enable FAST Cache on all Pools on the system if
that option was selected. While FAST Cache is being created, you can click Close to close out of this
window. The process is a Unisphere job and will continue to run in the background.

Create FAST Cache wizard. Results step.

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2.5.2 Editing the FAST Cache Setting on a Pool

To change the FAST Cache settings of a Pool, you must view the Properties window for the Pool. On the
General tab, you can change if the Pool can use FAST Cache by either clearing or checking the Use FAST
Cache checkbox and clicking Apply. An example of the General tab is shown in Figure 18. By default, FAST
Cache will be enabled at creation as shown in Figure 15 unless you clear the Enable FAST Cache for
existing Pools checkbox. The Use FAST Cache checkbox cannot be changed while FAST Cache is
disabled, or FAST Cache is being deleted.

Pool properties window. General tab.

2.5.3 Viewing the FAST Cache configuration

When FAST Cache is enabled on the system, you can view the FAST Cache configuration in the system
Settings window. To open the Settings window is Unisphere, select the Update system settings icon. While
in the Settings window, select Storage Configuration in the left pane, then select FAST Cache. Shown is
the current FAST Cache Status and configuration. As shown in Figure 19, the Status of FAST Cache is OK,
and FAST Cache currently is configured with four drives. From this window, you have the option to Expand,
Shrink, or Delete FAST Cache.

Settings window. Storage Configuration – FAST Cache. FAST Cache configured.

To view which drives were used to configure FAST Cache, select FAST Cache Drives, which is found under
Storage Configuration in the Settings window. As shown in Figure 20, the FAST Cache drives are
displayed, shown with their locations and size. In this example, drives from the Drive Processor Enclosure

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were selected to configure FAST Cache. This window makes it easy to locate the physical location of each of
the FAST Cache drives.

Settings window. Storage Configuration – FAST Cache Drives.

2.5.4 Expanding FAST Cache

When FAST Cache is enabled on the system, you have the option to expand the capacity of FAST Cache up
to the system maximum. To expand FAST Cache on a Dell EMC Unity system from Unisphere, you must go
to the FAST Cache page found under Storage Configuration in the Settings window. From this window,
select Expand to start the Expand FAST Cache wizard.

Figure 21 shows and example of the Expand FAST Cache wizard. When expanding FAST Cache, you may
only select free drives of the same size and type as what is currently in FAST Cache. In this example, only
400 GB SAS Flash 2 drives are available to be selected, as FAST Cache is currently created with those
drives. From the drop-down list, you can select pairs of drives to expand the capacity of FAST Cache up to
the system maximum. In this example, only two free drives were found. Click OK to start the expansion
process.

Expand FAST Cache wizard.

After clicking OK, an Expand FAST Cache job is created to add the drives to the FAST Cache configuration.
This process occurs in the background and does not impact I/O or promotions to FAST Cache. Figure 22
shows an example of the Job Properties window for the Expand FAST Cache job. Shown is the overall status

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of the operation, and the individual steps taken for the process. In this example, only two drives were added
to the configuration.

Job properties. Expand FAST Cache job.

2.5.5 Shrinking FAST Cache

As with expanding FAST Cache, you also have the option to shrink the capacity of FAST Cache when FAST
Cache is enabled on the system. To shrink FAST Cache on a system from Unisphere, you must go to the
FAST Cache page which is found under Storage Configuration in the Settings window. From this window,
select Shrink to start the Shrink FAST Cache wizard.

Figure 23 shows an example of the Shrink FAST Cache wizard, with and without the drop-down box selected.
In this window, you can see that FAST Cache currently contains six drives. During a shrink operation, you can
remove all but two of the drives currently configured in FAST Cache. In this example, two drives will be
removed from FAST Cache.

Shrink FAST Cache wizard.

Figure 24 shows the warning message received when shrinking drives out of the FAST Cache configuration.
The warning message outlines that all FAST Cache data must be flushed from the drives being removed from
FAST Cache. This operation takes time to complete and can vary based on the I/O workload being seen by
FAST Cache and the Pool drives. Performance of the system may also be impacted due to data no longer
residing in FAST Cache. Hot data will need to promote again once flushed out of FAST Cache.

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Shrink FAST Cache warning.

While the FAST Cache Shrink operation is completed, no changes to FAST Cache can be made. Figure 25
shows the FAST Cache page within system settings during the time a shrink operation was occurring. Notice
that no options within the FAST Cache are available while the operation is running.

Settings window. Storage Configuration – FAST Cache.

At any time, the status of the FAST Cache Shrink job can be viewed by going to the Jobs page found under
the Events heading in the left pane of Unisphere. Figure 26 shows an example of a completed FAST Cache
Shrink job.

Job properties. Shrink FAST Cache job.

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2.5.6 Deleting FAST Cache

The last option found on the FAST Cache page in the Settings window is Delete. Delete is used when you
want to disable FAST Cache and remove all drives from the FAST Cache configuration. This may be done to
repurpose the drives to a Pool, or to re-create FAST Cache with different capacity drives. From the FAST
Cache page in the Settings window, select Delete to delete the current FAST Cache configuration.

Figure 27 shows the message received after selecting Delete. This message states that all data must be
flushed from FAST Cache which can be a time-consuming operation. Performance of the system may also be
impacted during the delete operation as the contents of FAST Cache will need to be copied to the Pool drives
on the system. Because the data flushed from FAST Cache may no longer reside on Flash, this data may see
increased Response Times.

Delete FAST Cache Warning.

Figure 28 shows the FAST Cache page within the Settings window while the FAST Cache Delete operation is
running. No changes can be made to FAST Cache while a Delete is running. More information about the
progress of the operation can be seen on the Jobs page in Unisphere. Once the operation completes FAST
Cache can be created again.

Settings window. Storage Configuration – FAST Cache. FAST Cache deletion in progress.

You can review the status during a Delete FAST Cache operation by reviewing the Jobs page. Figure 29
shows an example of the processes seen during a delete job. In this example the Delete operation was just
started, and the first operation was still running.

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Job properties. Delete FAST Cache job.

2.6 Supported Drives and Configurations

In Dell EMC Unity, FAST Cache is only supported on Unity Hybrid systems, which includes Unity model 300,
400, 500, and 600 and Dell EMC Unity XT Series models 380, 480, 680, and 880. The Unity model 300, 400,
and 500 all support either 200 GB SAS Flash 2 drives, or 400 GB SAS Flash 2 drives in FAST Cache. The
Unity 600 system supports 200 GB SAS Flash 2 drives, 400 GB SAS Flash 2 drives, or 800 GB SAS Flash 2
drives in FAST Cache. Dell EMC Unity XT Series models only support 400 GB SAS Flash 2 drives in FAST
Cache. The following table, Table 4, shows each Unity model, the SAS Flash 2 drives supported for that
model, and the maximum FAST Cache capacities. For each of the maximum FAST Cache capacity, the total
number of drives needed to reach that capacity are listed.

Maximum FAST Cache Configurations.

Maximum FAST Cache Capacity
Unity System SAS Flash 2 Supported Drives
(Total number of drives needed)
200 GB 800 GB (8 Drives)
Unity 300
400 GB 800 GB (4 Drives)
200 GB 1200 GB (12 Drives)
Unity 400
400 GB 1200 GB (6 Drives)
200 GB 3200 GB (32 Drives)
Unity 500
400 GB 3200 GB (16 Drives)
200 GB 4000 GB (40 Drives)
Unity 600 400 GB 6000 GB (30 Drives)
800 GB 5600 GB (14 Drives)
Unity XT 380 400 GB 800 GB (4 Drives)
Unity XT 480 400 GB 1.2 TB (6 Drives)
Unity XT 680 400 GB 3.2 TB (16 Drives)
Unity XT 880 400 GB 6 TB (30 Drives)

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2.7 Failure Handling

In Dell EMC Unity, if a single drive failure occurs within FAST Cache, the private RAID 1 mirrored pair that is
affected will enter a degraded state. FAST Cache page cleaning begins copying dirty pages from the
degraded group to the Pool to ensure the data is protected on the system. This cleaning operation runs at a
faster rate than the normal cache cleaning operation. While in degraded mode, only read operations are
allowed to the degraded group as to reduce the chance of data loss. Write operations targeted for the
degraded group are redirected to the remaining FAST Cache drives within the configuration. Only after the
failed drive is replaced or a spare is chosen and fully rebuilt will the degraded pair enter a normal state and
allow for promotions to occur.

When a failed drive is encountered, as with Pool drives, FAST Cache drives can permanently spare to free
drives within the system. The system’s Hot Spare Policy however does not apply to drives within FAST
Cache. This means that if a system only contains two drives of a supported size and type, FAST Cache could
still be created. However, it is always recommended to have spare drives within the system. All drives not
used in FAST Cache are subject to the Unity Hot Spare Policy.

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3 Comparison of FAST Cache and FAST VP

The Dell EMC Unity FAST software contains both FAST Cache and FAST VP, and both have been designed
to take advantage of Flash technology. These software features complement each other, and both help
improve the overall performance of the system.

FAST Cache is a global resource on the system which leverages Flash to provide high throughput and low
response times. The most heavily accessed chunks of data not already residing on Flash are promoted into
FAST Cache, which boosts performance for active workloads. FAST Cache absorbs I/O bursts to the system,
which helps reduce I/O workloads on the Pool.

FAST VP helps to optimize TCO by relocating data across storage Pools to meet the demands of workloads
over time. As data ages, and the activity level for data reduces, data is relocated to provide capacity for active
workloads.

The table below compares FAST Cache and FAST VP.

FAST Cache and FAST VP Comparison.

Characteristic FAST Cache FAST VP
Utilizes SAS Flash 2 Flash drives to
Allows a storage resource to take advantage
Function create a large capacity secondary
of multiple drive types within a Pool.
cache on the system.
Granularity 64 KB chunks of data. 256 MB slices of data.
Data is physically moved between tiers of a
Frequently accessed data on a spinning
Pool based on the tiering policy and a
Operation drive is copied to FAST Cache for
statistical analysis of the activity level of the
increased performance.
slices.
Always active. Promotes frequently Relocations occur during a user specified
Timing accessed data residing on spinning FAST VP relocation window or started
drive to FAST Cache. manually.
Analysis of statistics information occurs every
Real-time monitoring of activity to data
Analysis hour. This data is used to determine which
within a Pool.
data needs to be relocated.

When FAST Cache and FAST VP are used together, they deliver improved TCO for the system and high
performance and efficiency. As FAST Cache is a global resource, highly active data from all Pools can use
FAST Cache. Bursts of data sent to Pool drives can be handled by FAST Cache, while FAST VP optimizes
drive utilization and efficiency within the Pool. With highly active data on FAST Cache, FAST VP can prioritize
the placement of slices for data accessed from the Pool. FAST Cache is a cost-efficient way to add Flash to a
configuration.

FAST VP works on a schedule to optimize the storage within a Pool. Even if a burst of I/O is seen, no slice
movements occur until the relocation window. If the activity is frequent enough to cause a promotion, the data
will be promoted to FAST Cache. FAST VP only monitors I/O which reaches the drives within the Pool. I/O
handled by FAST Cache does not affect the analysis done by FAST VP. However, I/O activity due to FAST
Cache page cleaning or flushing is monitored and weighed like normal I/O. If the activity of the slice is hot
enough, the slice may relocate to a higher tier.

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3.1 Interoperability
FAST Cache and FAST VP are designed to work with other features of the system, as well as each other.
The following features are compatible for use with FAST Cache and FAST VP.

3.1.1 Unified Snapshots

The Unified Snapshots technology is fully compatible with FAST Cache and FAST VP. Unified Snapshots is a
software feature which uses redirect-on-write technology to take Snapshots for LUNs, Consistency Groups,
datastores, and File Systems on the system. Writes to storage resources are redirected to new locations
within the Pool. These blocks inherit the Tiering Policy and initial allocation policy of the resource the
Snapshot was taken on. All data associated with a storage resource and its Snapshot can tier and leverage
the different drive types within the Pool.

3.1.2 System Cache

The FAST Cache and FAST VP algorithms only track and base decisions on I/O which reaches the
underlying storage for a given resource. I/O serviced by System Cache are not factored into the promotion
algorithms of FAST VP, or the statistical tracking by FAST VP. As System Cache is servicing the I/O,
unnecessary promotions or slice relocations are avoided entirely. System Cache page cleaning or flushing
operations are counted as these are I/Os to the drives in the Pool.

FAST Cache and System Cache both have specific functions which complement each other. System Cache
handles many workloads, such as high-frequency workloads, which are best handled by System Cache.
System Cache also consolidates I/O requests where possible, which can be seen in prefetching of sequential
data, or coalescing of sequential writes. This helps to reduce the amount of I/O sent to the Pools. Each
feature helps to improve the overall performance of the system. The table below shows the differences
between System Cache and FAST Cache.

System Cache and FAST Cache comparison.

Characteristic System Cache FAST Cache

Position Closest to the CPU, Lowest Latency Between System Cache and Pool drives
Sequential I/O
Random I/O
I/O larger than 64 KB
Best Suited For I/O smaller than 64 KB
Zero fill requests
Data with a high locality
High-Frequency Access Patterns
Nanosecond to microsecond response
Response Time Microsecond to millisecond response time
time
Single memory region which services Single region which services read and write
Operation
read and write requests requests
Capacities scale to higher levels than
Capacity Limited in size, capacity based on model System Cache. Maximums based on
model.
Granularity Fixed 8 KB page size Fixed 64 KB page size
Failing drives can proactively hot spare to
Memory modules are customer
Availability free drives within the system. Faulted
replaceable
component is customer replaceable.

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Contents of System Cache are volatile.

Battery Backup Units power the Contents of FAST Cache are non-volatile
Power Failure
system until all dirty pages are copied and can withstand power loss.
to the mSATA drive.

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4 Conclusion
The FAST software optimizes Dell EMC Unity systems which reduce the Total Cost of Ownership and
increases the overall performance of the system by efficiently using the resources within the system. The
FAST software optimizes the use of Flash drives, by leveraging them to service highly active data within the
system. Utilizing Flash with FAST Cache avoids dedicating these drives to Pools and allows them to be a
global resource on the system. FAST Cache and FAST VP serve different purposes and help to achieve
storage efficiency in different ways.

While FAST Cache handles bursts of activity and unpredictable workloads, FAST VP tiers data over time, and
continuously matches resource needs to tiers within the Pool. These features complement each other, as they
work on different granularities, and have different frequencies in which they function. Implementing both FAST
Cache and FAST VP on your storage system can improve performance and reduce storage costs.

FAST Cache and FAST VP can be customized once, and left to run on the storage, with no other manual
intervention needed. FAST Cache and FAST VP will efficiently manage the placement of data and leverage
the drives in the system. Each of these features can be managed easily through Unisphere, Unisphere CLI,
and REST API.

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A Technical support and resources

Dell.com/support is focused on meeting customer needs with proven services and support.

Storage technical documents and videos provide expertise that helps to ensure customer success on Dell
EMC storage platforms.

A.1 Related resources

The following documents can be found on Dell EMC Online Support:

• Dell EMC Unity: Introduction to the Platform

• Dell EMC Unity XT: Introduction to the Platform
• Dell EMC Unity: Best Practices Guide
• Dell EMC Unity: Cloud Tiering Appliance (CTA)
• Dell EMC Unity: Compression
• Dell EMC Unity: Compression for File
• Dell EMC Unity: Data at Rest Encryption
• Dell EMC Unity: Data Integrity
• Dell EMC Unity: Data Reduction
• Dell EMC Unity: DR Access and Testing
• Dell EMC Unity: Dynamic Pools
• Dell EMC Unity: File-Level Retention (FLR)
• Dell EMC Unity: High Availability
• Dell EMC Unity: Introduction to the Platform
• Dell EMC Unity: NAS Capabilities
• Dell EMC Unity: MetroSync
• Dell EMC Unity: MetroSync and Home Directories
• Dell EMC Unity: MetroSync and VMware vSphere NFS Datastores
• Dell EMC Unity: Migration Technologies
• Dell EMC Unity: OpenStack Best Practices for Ocata Release
• Dell EMC Unity: Performance Metrics
• Dell EMC Unity: Replication Technologies
• Dell EMC Unity: Snapshots and Thin Clones
• Dell EMC Unity: Operating Environment (OE) Overview
• Dell EMC Unity: Unisphere Overview
• Dell EMC Unity: Virtualization Integration
• Dell EMC UnityVSA
• Dell EMC Unity Cloud Edition with VMware Cloud on AWS
• Dell EMC Unity Data Reduction Analysis
• Dell EMC Unity: Migrating to Dell EMC Unity with SAN Copy
• Dell EMC Unity Storage with Microsoft Hyper-V
• Dell EMC Unity Storage with Microsoft SQL Server
• Dell EMC Unity Storage with Microsoft Exchange Server
• Dell EMC Unity Storage with VMware vSphere
• Dell EMC Unity Storage with Oracle Databases
• Dell EMC Unity 350F Storage with VMware Horizon View VDI

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