Storage capacity planning
with PRTG
Plan your storage capacity efficiently and data driven with PRTG
Monitor your physical and
virtual storage
Avoid data loss and failed backups with PRTG
Storage capacity planning is the targeted planning of storage capacity to estimate future storage needs and thus forecast as best as possible to purchase just enough storage to meet the needs of employees and applications. Having sufficient storage is associated with costs whereas the opposite, namely not having enough storage when needed, could be downright disastrous. Planning storage capacity is a matter of juggling circumstances that are subject to constant change. And one of the most difficult factors to calculate is the potential data storage requirements of future projects because that means calculating unknown factors. It is then practical to be able to check the history of comparable projects.
System administrators and, in particular, storage administrators can use various storage capacity planning tools to determine how storage is currently allocated. Such tools enable the analysis of storage systems and report on available data storage capacity and storage performance. Tiered storage also enables less frequently used items to be moved to a lower and less expensive tier, freeing up faster and more expensive tiers for the applications that require them.
Data deduplication and file compression can help cut the amount of storage capacity needed by eliminating extra copies of the same files and by reducing the space needed to store files and images. Through storage virtualization, physical storage can be pooled and managed from a storage device, while storage administrators can use thin provisioning to virtually allocate storage but only when needed. In contrast to the usual full provisioning (thick provisioning), thin provisioning only reserves the storage that is actually needed. This means that more memory can be provided than is actually available.
The key to successful storage capacity planning is storage monitoring
Storage problems or failures can have many impacts on business. And there is no getting around the fact that in IT-dependent business processes, you have to centrally monitor all storage components around the clock. This means monitoring both hardware and software and availability and performance.
A central monitoring solution can display the entire storage system with all of its elements and tools in a central overview. However, this solution must meet some key requirements:
Storage system monitoring
Dell EMC, NetApp, Lenovo – an effective monitoring tool must provide out-of-the-box support for the most popular storage vendors and must also be flexible enough to allow quick and easy custom integrations with other systems.
IT infrastructure and performance monitoring
Switches, firewalls, databases, servers, virtual hosts, and many other IT components play important roles in the overall data storage process. A holistic monitoring solution should, among other things, include these components.
Cloud storage monitoring
Let's not forget the increasingly important factor of cloud storage resources. Because storing data in the cloud is critical these days, a helpful monitoring solution should also provide insights into the most popular cloud storage providers.
Hardware monitoring
In comparison, this is more of a side note in the context of storage capacity but as part of a comprehensive view, a monitoring solution should also be able to monitor the state of a physical disk as well as its temperature, fan status, CPU, and so on.
PRTG and capacity planning
In PRTG, “sensors” are the basic monitoring elements. One sensor usually monitors one measured value in your network, e.g. the traffic of a switch port, the CPU load of a server, the free space of a disk drive. On average you need about 5-10 sensors per device or one sensor per switch port. 
How PRTG defines sensors
Among numerous other factors that make up an intelligent monitoring tool, PRTG provides IT administrators with a deep understanding of utilization in order to assist with capacity planning. This capability can help organizations determine when to scale resources up or down.
If possible, a powerful capacity planning tool should have many or even all of the following seven features:
- Integration with network monitoring software
- Quality of service (QoS) functions
- Time-based analysis
- Traffic replays
- Reporting functions
- Data visualization
- Historical data storage
PRTG offers these features – and many more. Some other characteristics of PRTG are:
- Monitoring of all disk types including NAS, SAN, physical, logical, clustered disks, volumes input/output, and virtual disk storage solutions (VMware, Hyper-V, and XenServer)
- Additional access management control of files, folders, and shares
- WMI, SNMP, and SOAP for disk monitoring and more
- Linux/Unix disk monitoring functionality
Experience the scope and design of our storage and file server sensors for yourself. PRTG includes a wide range of predefined, ready-to-use sensors for monitoring the most popular storage systems such as Dell EMC, NetApp, HPE, Lenovo, Synology, QNAP, or even a Buffalo TeraStation™. This includes sensors to monitor physical and logical disks for these systems. For cloud storage, PRTG comes with sensors for services like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, or Amazon Web Services.
PRTG Network Monitor: Storage capacity planning and more
In addition to the features that are relevant for storage capacity planning, there are other capabilities
that make monitoring with PRTG both convenient and effective:
A sophisticated notification and alerting system
With PRTG, you can define thresholds that warn you before a failure occurs or a critical value is reached. You decide how you want to receive such alerts: via email, SMS, push notification, or otherwise. The notification feature provides tremendous value to smaller IT teams as well as to staff on larger teams who are on-call - they can immediately see where the problem is and whether the problem has been confirmed or not.
Easy installation, automation, and customization
The more complex a solution is, the less it gets used. Since it is essential that you and your team monitor the storage capacity and the rest of your IT environment around the clock, the tool should be easy to use in your daily IT monitoring. This point has always been our main focus when developing and designing PRTG and leads us directly to our next point.
Dashboards and mobile apps
In PRTG, you see every detail from port to disk. Get to the root of the problem with a detailed analysis and create individual maps for each member of your team, their tasks, and their responsibilities. All user interfaces allow SSL/TLS-secured local and remote access and can be used simultaneously.
All-in-one monitoring
PRTG monitors the entire path that data takes from the source application to the final disk, folder, or database where it is stored. All functions, from traffic monitoring to server, hardware, database, or VMware monitoring, as well as monitoring of actual storage devices and the respective storage capacity are included in every license of PRTG.
Choose PRTG today
IT is the foundation of nearly any business process and with digitization and big data, storage and storage capacity planning have become critically important. We believe that PRTG Network Monitor is an ideal companion to keep an eye on your storage capacity planning and all other areas of your IT. PRTG always thinks comprehensively and takes other important aspects of storage capacity planning into account, such as storage system failures that cause critical business processes to slow down.
PRTG comes with a 30-day trial that allows you to experience it firsthand and without having to give up any of its many features. Download PRTG today and if you don't like it, you don't have to do anything else. After 30 days, your license will turn into a free one, allowing you to continue monitoring with up to 100 sensors for free.
PRTG: The multi-tool for sysadmins
Adapt PRTG individually and dynamically to your needs and rely on a strong API:- HTTP API: Access monitoring data and manipulate monitoring objects via HTTP requests
- Custom sensors: Create your own PRTG sensors for customized monitoring
- Custom notifications: Create your own notifications and send action triggers to external systems
- REST Custom sensor: Monitor almost everything that provides data in XML or JSON format
Create innovative solutions with Paessler’s partners
Partnering with innovative vendors, Paessler unleashes synergies to create
new and additional benefits for joined customers.
With ScriptRunner, Paessler integrates a powerful event automation platform into PRTG Network Monitor.
ScriptRunner
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PRTG |
Network Monitoring Software - Version 24.2.94.1400 (April 10th, 2024) |
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Hosting |
Download for Windows and cloud-based version PRTG Hosted Monitor available |
Languages |
English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese |
Pricing |
Up to 100 sensors for free (Price List) |
Unified Monitoring |
Network devices, bandwidth, servers, applications, virtual environments, remote systems, IoT, and more |
Supported Vendors & Applications |
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