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Deciding which aggregate creation method to use

Although aggregate creation with auto-provision is a best practice in ONTAP 9.4 and later, you must determine whether it is supported in your environment. If it is not, you must make decisions about RAID policy and disk configuration, and then create the aggregates manually.

When you create an aggregate using the storage aggregate auto-provision command, ONTAP analyzes available spare disks in the cluster and generates a recommendation about how spare disks should be used to create aggregates according to best practices. ONTAP displays the summary of recommended aggregates including their names and usable size, and then prompts you to decide whether the aggregates should be created as recommended.

In many cases, the recommended aggregate layout in the auto-provision display will be optimal for your environment. However, if your environment includes the following configurations, you must use the manual aggregate configuration method.

  • MetroCluster

  • SyncMirror

  • FlashPool aggregates

  • Multiple disk types or sizes are connected to the nodes

In addition, if any of the following disk conditions are present, they must be addressed before using the auto-provision method:

  • Missing disks

  • Fluctuation in spare disk numbers

  • Unassigned disks

  • Non-zeroed spares

  • Disks undergoing maintenance testing

The storage aggregate auto-provision man page contains more information about these requirements.