Throughput is the performance metric that measures the rate of data transfer over a specific period. It is typically expressed in units like megabytes per second (MB/s) or gigabytes per second (GB/s). The scenario describes measuring the "amount of data" over a "span of an hour," which is the exact definition of throughput. This metric is crucial for diagnosing performance issues related to bandwidth-intensive workloads where the volume of data transferred is the primary concern.

A. I/O alignment: This refers to the proper positioning of I/O requests with the underlying storage blocks. Misalignment can cause performance degradation but is not a measurement of data volume over time.

B. parity: This is a data protection technique used in RAID configurations to provide redundancy. It is a feature of the storage layout, not a performance metric measuring data transfer.

D. IOPS: IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) measures the number of read and write operations per second, not the amount of data transferred. A high IOPS can have low throughput if the I/O sizes are small.

1. NetApp Technical Report TR-4393

"E-Series and EF-Series Best Practices for Performance

" Page 6

Section 2.1 Performance Fundamentals:

"Throughput is the amount of data that can be transferred in a given amount of time. It is typically measured in megabytes per second (MBps)." This directly supports the correct answer by defining throughput as the amount of data over time.

"IOPS is the number of I/O operations that can be performed in a given amount of time. It is typically measured in I/Os per second." This clarifies why option D is incorrect.

2. NetApp SANtricity 11.70 Documentation

"Monitor performance

" Online Help Center:

Under the "Performance graphs" section

the key metrics are defined: "Throughput – The rate at which data is transferred to or from the storage array

measured in megabytes per second (MB/s)." This definition aligns perfectly with the scenario in the question.