Home > Storage > PowerVault > Guides > Dell PowerVault ME5 Series: Microsoft Hyper-V Best Practices > Right-size the ME5 storage array
Before deploying ME5, consider the environmental design factors that impact storage capacity and performance. This planning ensures that new or expanded storage is right-sized for the Hyper-V environment. If PowerVault is deployed to support an existing Hyper-V workload, metrics such as storage capacity, bandwidth, and IOPS might already be understood. If the environment is new, these factors must be determined to correctly size the storage array, the storage fabric, and workload hosts.
Many common short- and long-term problems can be avoided by making sure the storage part of the solution will provide the right capacity and performance now and in the future. Scalability is a key design consideration.
Work with your Dell Technologies representative to complete a performance evaluation if there are questions about right-sizing an ME5 storage solution for your environment and workload.
Optimizing performance is a process of identifying and mitigating design limitations that cause bottlenecks. A bottleneck occurs when performance or functionality is negatively impacted under load because a capacity threshold is reached somewhere within the overall design. The goal is to maintain a balanced configuration end-to-end that allows the workload to operate at or near peak efficiency. The following design elements are potential bottlenecks: