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Enabling data compression on a volume

You can enable data compression on a volume to achieve space savings by using the volume efficiency modify command. You can enable data compression on a FlexVol volume to achieve space savings by using the volume efficiency modify command. You can also assign a compression type to your volume, if you do not want the default compression type.

Before you begin

You must have enabled deduplication on the volume.
Notes

  • Deduplication only needs to be enabled and does not need to be running on the volume.

  • The compression scanner must be used to compress the existing data on the volumes present in AFA platforms.

Enabling deduplication on a volume

About this task

  • In HDD aggregates and Flash Pool aggregates, you can enable both inline and postprocess compression or only postprocess compression on a volume.

    If you are enabling both, then you must enable postprocess compression on the volume before enabling inline compression.

  • In AFA platforms, only inline compression is supported.

    Before enabling inline compression, you must enable postprocess compression on the volume. However, because postprocess compression is not supported in AFA platforms, no postprocess compression takes place on those volumes and an EMS message is generated informing you that postprocess compression was skipped.

    Temperature sensitive storage efficiency is introduced in ONTAP 9.8. With this feature, storage efficiency is applied according to whether data is hot or cold. For cold data, larger data blocks are compressed, and for hot data, which is overwritten more often, smaller data blocks are compressed, making the process more efficient. Temperature sensitive storage efficiency is enabled automatically on newly created thin-provisioned AFA volumes.

  • The compression type is automatically assigned based on the aggregate's platform:

    Platform/aggregatesCompression type
    AFA

    Adaptive compression

    Flash Pool aggregates

    Adaptive compression

    HDD aggregates

    Secondary compression

  • Use the volume efficiency modify command to enable data compression with the default compression type.

    Example

    The following command enables postprocess compression on volume VolA of SVM vs1:

    volume efficiency modify -vserver vs1 -volume VolA -compression true

    The following command enables both postprocess and inline compression on volume VolA of SVM vs1:

    volume efficiency modify -vserver vs1 -volume VolA -compression true -inline-compression true
  • Use the volume efficiency modify command at the advanced privilege level to enable data compression with a specific compression type.
    1. Use the set -privilege advanced command to change the privilege level to advanced.
    2. Use the volume efficiency modify command to assign a compression type to a volume.

      Example

      The following command enables postprocess compression and assigns the adaptive compression type to volume VolA of SVM vs1:

      volume efficiency modify -vserver vs1 -volume VolA -compression true -compression-type adaptive

      The following command enables both postprocess and inline compression and assigns the adaptive compression type to volume VolA of SVM vs1:

      volume efficiency modify -vserver vs1 -volume VolA -compression true -compression-type adaptive -inline-compression true
    3. Use the set -privilege admin command to change the privilege level to admin.
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