A storage virtualization technology that dynamically allocates space as required in a storage area network (SAN). Rather than pre-allocate storage that sits empty until it is used, thin provisioning lets network administrators over-allocate capacity without actually reserving physical storage. Thin provisioning provides more efficient use of storage resources but requires software that frees up unused blocks as soon as data are deleted and manages storing new data in a more orderly fashion. See
storage virtualization and
SAN.