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5 PS Series Template Volumes and Thin Clones: How and When to Use Them | TR1063
1 Introduction
Data growth continues to increase exponentially and as result, technology companies are continually trying to
develop new ways to reduce data storage consumption. In most cases, these technology developments are
specific or are the best fit for certain applications. One example of these specific solutions is the use of
template volumes and thin clones for Dell EMC PS Series arrays.
In the PS Series array architecture, a template volume acts as a read-only gold image copy of a volume from
which writeable thin clones can be created. The thin clones initially consume little to no storage space on the
array and as data is written to the thin clone, only new writes to a thin clone are recorded to storage space,
thus reducing the amount of storage consumption.
This technology is ideal for environments that use many copies or images of like data. This document
discusses a few common application environments in which PS Series template volumes and thin clones can
play an important role in simplifying and reducing storage consumption.