Things Need to Know about Thick Provisioned Lazy Zeroed

In virtual environments, choosing the correct method of disk provisioning is critical to achieving a balance between performance, space efficiency, and operational requirements. Thick provisioned lazy zeroed is one such method, commonly used in virtualization platforms such as VMware. In this article, we'll talk about what thick provisioned lazy zeroed is, as well as other disk provisioning methods and the differences between them.

What are the Three Types of Disk Provisioning in VMware

VMware virtualized environments offer three main types of disk provisioning methods, each targeting different storage needs, performance requirements, and operational preferences. The following is a detailed description of the three types.

Thick Provisioned Lazy Zeroed

With this configuration type, virtual disks are created in the default thick format, and the entire disk space is preallocated to the physical storage. However, it is not zeroed out when the block is created but is zeroed out on demand when it is first written.

✔Advantages

• Guaranteed storage allocation.
• Faster creation time than eagerly zeroed disks.
• Prevents storage fragmentation.

❌Disadvantages

• Slightly slower write performance due to the need to initialize data blocks on the first write.
• Allocates unused space, reducing storage efficiency.

Thick Provisioned Eager Zeroed

This configuration supports thick virtual disks with clustering features such as fault tolerance. it will pre-allocate the entire disk size but takes more time to zero out the remaining data on the physical device during disk creation.

✔Advantages

• Highest write performance.
• Ideal for applications where blocks need to be cleared for security or compliance reasons.

❌Disadvantages

• Long initialization time due to pre-zeroing.
• Inefficient use of storage for unused space.

Thin Disk Provisioning

This configuration dynamically allocates storage space on demand as data is written, saving storage space. Thin disks start small and then increase as needed, which improves space efficiency. It does not allocate or zero out storage blocks, which are allocated and zeroed out on first access.

✔Advantages

• Efficient utilization of storage resources.
• Ideal for environments with variable or unpredictable storage requirements.

❌Disadvantages

• Risk of overprovisioning if actual usage exceeds available storage space.
• Performance issues may occur under heavy workloads.

Thin Provision vs Thick Provision

You can browse the following chart to have a better understanding of their differences.

Further Data Security: A Reliable Backup Solution

While storage involves the allocation and management of storage resources, backups of data are still needed because they are essential for data protection, disaster recovery, and ensuring data availability and integrity even in the event of hardware failure, human error, or cyber threats. AOMEI Cyber Backup is a professional and powerful backup software that provides you with automatic backup, instant recovery, and other solutions designed to protect your data. When using AOMEI Cyber Backup you can enjoy:

Virtual Machine Backup: It supports Hyper-V and VMware ESXi backup environments.
Centralized Management: Simplify the backup management process with a centralized console that provides easy visibility into the status of all your backups, ensuring you can address any issues that may arise on time.
Disaster Recovery: You can immediately restore an entire VMware virtual machine to a usable state without having to recreate and reconfigure a new virtual machine, reducing downtime and potential financial loss.
Various Backup Methods: In addition to full backups, you can also choose to perform incremental or differential backups of your virtual machines.

How to backup VMware ESXi VMs using AOMEI Cyber Backup

Step 1. Log into the AOMEI Cyber Backup Console, navigate to Source Device > VMware > + Add VMware Device to Add vCenter or Standalone ESXi. Then enter Device Information and User Information and click Confirm.

Step 2. Navigate to Backup Task > Create New Task, and select VMware ESXi Backup as the Device Type. Then configure the Task Name, Device, Target, Schedule, and Archive.

• Device: Cover multiple VMs on the host within one backup task.
• Target: You can choose to back up to a local path, or a network path.
• Schedule: You can perform full, differential, or incremental backup, and automate execution according to the frequency you can specify.
• Archive: You can add an Amazon S3 bucket, and archive backup versions to it.

Step 3. Click Start Backup, select Add the schedule, and start backup now, or Add the schedule only.

Conclusion

Thick-configuration lazy zeroing is an intermediate solution for virtual disk provisioning that combines the benefits of guaranteed storage provisioning with reduced initial time. There are three configurations, including Thick provision lazy zeroed, thick provision eager zeroed, and thin provision. you can choose a configuration that meets your needs, and they all address specific application and infrastructure requirements in virtualized environments.