How to manage storage system resources by using FlexShare

The FlexShare tool is provided by Data ONTAP to enable you to use priorities and hints to increase your control over how your storage system resources are used.

FlexShare uses the following methods:

Priorities are assigned to volumes, to assign relative priorities between:
- Different volumes
  For example, you could specify that operations on /vol/db are more important than operations on /vol/test.
- Client data accesses and system operations
  For example, you could specify that client accesses are more important than SnapMirror operations.

Hints are used to affect the way cache buffers are handled for a given volume.

For more information about FlexShare, see the na_priority(1) man page.

When to use FlexShare
If your storage system consistently provides the performance required for your environment, then you do not need FlexShare. If, however, your storage system sometimes does not deliver sufficient performance to some of its users, you can use FlexShare to increase your control over storage system resources to ensure that those resources are being used most effectively for your environment.
How to use FlexShare
You use FlexShare to assign priorities to volume data access, set the volume buffer cache policy, and modify the default priority.

Parent topic: System performance and resources