This page provides an overview of the volumes feature of Google Cloud NetApp Volumes.
About volumes
A volume is a file system container in a storage pool that stores application, database, and user data.
You create a volume's capacity using the available capacity in the storage pool and you can define and resize the capacity without disruption to your processes.
Storage pool settings apply to the volumes contained within them automatically. These settings include service level, location, network (Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)), Active Directory policy, and customer-managed encryption key (CMEK) policy.
Volume performance
The performance capability of a volume is based on service level, pool size for Standard and Standard in Preview service levels, and volume size for Premium and Extreme service levels, which is defined by the storage pool that contains it. You can assign the volume to a different host pool with a different service level to optimize performance.
Space provisioning
Space provisioning for a volume affects its capacity and performance. You should
provision the right amount of capacity with the right service level to achieve
your performance objectives. For example, a volume with 5 TiB of provisioned
space in a storage pool with the Extreme service level
(128 MiBps throughput per TiB of allocated volume size) provides a throughput
of 640 MiBps (5*128 MiBps).
Snapshots consume the volume's capacity. For more information, see Snapshot space use.
If a volume becomes full, clients receive an out of space error when they try
to modify or add data. You should monitor usage of your volumes and maintain a
provisioned space buffer of 20% above your expected volume utilization. For
information on monitoring usage, see Monitor NetApp Volumes.
Volume reversion
NetApp Volumes lets you revert volumes to a previously created snapshot. When you revert a volume, it restores all volume contents back to the point in time the snapshot was taken. Any snapshot created after the snapshot used for the reversion is lost. If you don't want to lose data, we recommend that you clone a volume or restore data with snapshots instead.
You can use volume reversion to test and upgrade applications or fend off ransomware attacks. The process is similar to overwriting the volume with a backup, but only takes a few seconds. You can revert a volume to a snapshot independent of the size of the volume.
Reversions happen when the volume is online and in use by clients. We recommend stopping all critical applications before you revert to avoid potential data corruption because the reversion changes open files without any notification to the application.