Managing shared volumes involves specific considerations for capacity changes and data protection to ensure cluster stability.
Capacity Management
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Increasing Capacity: Online disk expansion is fully supported. To increase capacity, update the disk size within the Nutanix Volume Group; the change is immediately reflected at the storage layer. Once updated in Prism, you must use Guest OS tools (e.g., Windows Disk Management or Linux pvresize) to extend the partition and file system.
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Decreasing Capacity: Reducing the size of a disk is generally not supported. Shrinking volumes carries a high risk of data corruption and is blocked by the management interface to protect the integrity of the clustered file system.
Snapshots and Data Protection
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Snapshot Operations: Snapshotting a VM or a Volume Group follows the standard Nutanix workflow and is identical to the process used for traditional vDisks. Other than “break-glass” type of scenarios, it is recommended to use Nutanix Prism for all snapshot management and lifecycle operations in order to maintain proper Change Block Tracking.
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FlashArray Integration: While snapshots are triggered and managed through Nutanix, they are executed as native FlashArray-based snapshots behind the scenes. This ensures high-performance, space-efficient data protection that leverages the array's hardware capabilities without impacting hypervisor performance.
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More detailed information about FlashArray snapshot behavior with Nutanix can be found via this KB article.