thinking sysadmin » fas2020 http://andyleonard.com qstat -u aleonard -s z Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:46:31 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 NetApp FAS2020 aggregate capacity on ONTAP 7.3.1 – now 16TB http://andyleonard.com/2009/06/23/netapp-fas2020-aggregate-capacity-on-ontap-7-3-1/ http://andyleonard.com/2009/06/23/netapp-fas2020-aggregate-capacity-on-ontap-7-3-1/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:41:45 +0000 Andy http://andyleonard.com/?p=289 My NetApp FAS 2020 Sizing post remains popular nearly a year after I wrote it. However, with ONTAP 7.3.1 (and later releases) out, it’s also out of date. Here’s current information from p. 33 of the ONTAP 7.3.1.1 release notes (NOW login required):

Beginning with Data ONTAP 7.3.1, FAS2020 systems support aggregates up to 16 TB raw capacity,
provided that the root volume is hosted in a dedicated aggregate (that is, one that contains only the root
volume and no user data).

The release notes go on to point out an alternative to the dedicated root aggregate – having two spare disks per controller.

It’s nice to see the FAS2020 finally getting a maximum aggregate size on par with the rest of NetApp’s product line. However, in an era where 2TB drives are available from Western Digital – and presumably other manufacturers before too long – ONTAP’s 16TB aggregate limit grows increasingly anachronistic.

]]> http://andyleonard.com/2009/06/23/netapp-fas2020-aggregate-capacity-on-ontap-7-3-1/feed/ 2 NetApp FAS 2020 Sizing http://andyleonard.com/2008/08/04/netapp-fas-2020-sizing/ http://andyleonard.com/2008/08/04/netapp-fas-2020-sizing/#comments Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:59:33 +0000 Andy http://andyleonard.com/?p=58 Update: For ONTAP 7.3.1 and later, this post is now out-of-date.

It’s been a while since I posted about my unhappiness with NetApp’s FAS2020. And while we’ve replaced our 2020 with a 2050, I still get a lot of traffic to those pages, and a few emailed questions from prospective or new 2020 owners asking about the so-called 8TB limit. Here’s a summary of what I know:

  • The aggregate limit appears to actually be 7TB, not 8TB as is commonly stated. I’m not sure what the source of this confusion is, but error messages on the 2020 and NetApp’s docs on NOW seem to bear this out.
  • If you have 1TB drives, your maximum aggregate size is 4.36TB from a single DP RAID group of 8 drives. This is before aggregate and volume snap reserves, which you can adjust to fit your needs, but are configured by default to be five and twenty percent, respectively.
  • If you have 750GB drives, your maximum aggregate size is 4.91TB, from a single DP RAID group of 11 drives – again, before aggregate and volume snap reserves.
  • If you have other drives that you’ll be using, you can calculate the maximum aggregate size based on this NOW document and drive Rightsizes.
  • The FAS2020 currently supports four shelves of fourteen drives each, plus twelve internal drives for a total of sixty-eight drives.
  • I never got to the point of pushing our 2020′s performance limits while we had it, but in general, the more spindles you have, the faster. I suspect that the 2020′s performance might be hamstrung by it’s limited NVRAM (128MB with a single controller), but I can’t confirm that. Our 2050 has performed adequately as second-tier storage for two 3040s.

Updated: Fixed my math on the maximum aggregate sizes – I left out the 10% WAFL overhead!

]]> http://andyleonard.com/2008/08/04/netapp-fas-2020-sizing/feed/ 6 My NetApp FAS2020 Makes Me Want To Cry http://andyleonard.com/2008/02/07/my-netapp-fas2020-makes-me-want-to-cry/ http://andyleonard.com/2008/02/07/my-netapp-fas2020-makes-me-want-to-cry/#comments Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:29:15 +0000 Andy http://andyleonard.com/2008/02/07/my-netapp-fas2020-makes-me-want-to-cry/ poptart> version
NetApp Release 7.2.4L1: Wed Nov 21 00:49:33 PST 2007
poptart> aggr add aggr0 11
Aggregate size 8.48 TB exceeds limit 7.00 TB
aggr add: Can not add specified disks to the aggregate because the aggregate size limit for this system type would be exceeded.

For those with NOW access, the reason is here: FAS2020 Maximum Aggregate Size: Revised from 16TB to 8TB – not sure where they got the “8TB” in the title, though.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for data integrity, and I think that keeping the ability to run the WAFL recovery tools is a great idea, but a maximum aggregate size of nine 750GB SATA drives (per the above document) is ridiculous! Good thing you can now have four shelves with the 2020, because you’re going to need them for all the parity drives you’ll be using.

Did NetApp’s software group fail to talk to hardware (and marketing) with this product? No mention of this limitation on the FAS2000 series data sheet, of course.

As an aside, I’m following Solaris’ COMSTAR and CIFS projects with great interest. I’m really hoping they spur NetApp’s engineering group – and not just their lawyers – into action.

Update (4/17/2008): Two months out, it’s only reasonable for me to add the following: NetApp and our reseller went to great lengths to make this situation right for my employer. I don’t feel at liberty to go into specifics, since this is a personal blog, and I don’t speak for my employer (Hi Tom!), but their response was impressive. While I’m still not a fan of the 2020, the response of NetApp and our reseller was head and shoulders above what is typical for the industry.

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