When you deploy a traditional SAN, you are asked to estimate how much storage you'll need months or years in advance. The odds of making an accurate guess that far in advance are long, so it’s not surprising that administrators frequently over-allocate and over-spend to ensure they won't run out of space. If you discover later that you have grossly over-allocated storage, it is nearly impossible to reclaim that unused space.
In a LeftHand SAN, thin provisioning is different. SAN/iQ® software allocates storage space only as data is written to that volume. Easy-to-read charts and alerts keep you apprised of volume utilization levels, letting you know when you are approaching storage limits, allowing you to purchase storage capacity when you need it.
All LeftHand SAN features leverage SAN/iQ Thin Provisioning, which makes your SAN extremely space efficient.