Which provisioning method provides a large amount of storage in advance?

The correct answer is thick provisioning. This method involves allocating all of the storage space to a virtual disk or volume at the time of creation, regardless of whether all of that space is immediately needed or used. This means that a large amount of storage is provisioned and reserved for the application or workload, which can help prevent issues related to running out of storage capacity as it strictly maintains the required space for future data use.

Thick provisioning is often used in environments where predictable storage performance and capacity are important, as it ensures that the storage resources are allocated upfront. This can also simplify management, since the storage is reserved and won’t change dynamically based on usage.

In contrast, other provisioning methods like thin provisioning allocate storage on an as-needed basis, which may be more efficient in terms of resource utilization but does not guarantee that large amounts of storage are available upfront. Dynamic provisioning adjusts the allocated space as data needs grow, while auto provisioning automates the allocation process but may not guarantee the advance availability of large storage capacities.