Countering Underutilized Storage Capacity 235
customers, or users; for the ease of managing a single discrete storage sys-
tem; or for financial and budgeting purposes. In some cases, the expense to
consolidate, virtualize, and manage may not be offset by the potential gains.
When consolidating storage, consider where and how storage is being
allocated and active (or idle) in order to know what can be moved when and
where. You can leverage newer, faster, and more energy-efficient storage
technology as well as upgrade storage systems with faster processors, I/O
busses, increased memory, faster HDDs, and more efficient power supplies
and cooling fans.
Looking at storage utilization only from the viewpoint of space capacity
consumption, particularly for active ...