Supported configurations for FlexGroup volumes

Features supported starting in ONTAP 9.9.1​

• SVM disaster recovery

• SnapMirror fanout relationships of 2 or more (A to B, A to C), with a maximum of 8 fanout legs.

• SnapMirror cascading relationships up to two levels (A to B to C)

Features supported starting in ONTAP 9.8​

• Restoring a single file from a FlexGroup SnapMirror vault or from a UDP destination
  • Restore can be from a FlexGroup volume of any geometry to FlexGroup volume of any geometry
  • Only one file per restore operation is supported

• Converting transitioned volumes to FlexGroup volumes requires diag mode and should be performed only under Lenovo Support supervision. It is highly recommended that you contact Lenovo Support before you proceed with the conversion process.

• NFSv4.2
• Asynchronous delete of files and directories
• Files System Analytics (FSA)
• FlexGroup as a VMware vSphere datastore

• Restoring "pre-conversion" Snapshot copies to a FlexGroup volume

  Pre-conversion Snapshot copies are Snapshot copies made on a FlexVol volume before it was converted to a FlexGroup volume.

• Additional support for tape backup and restore using NDMP, including the following features:
  • NDMP restartable backup extension (RBE) and Snapshot Management Extension (SSME)
  • Environment variables EXCLUDE and MULTI_SUBTREE_NAMES support FlexGroup backups
  • Introduction of IGNORE_CTIME_MTIME environment variable for FlexGroup backups
  • Individual file recovery in a FlexGroup using the NDMP_SNAP_RECOVER message, which is part of extension 0x2050

  Dump and restore sessions are aborted during an upgrade or revert.

Features supported starting from ONTAP 9.7​

• FlexClone volume

• NFSv4 and NFSv4.1

• NFS

• Tape backup and restore by using NDMP

  You must be aware of the following points for NDMP support on FlexGroup volumes:

  • The NDMP_SNAP_RECOVER message in the extension class 0x2050 can be used only for recovering an entire FlexGroup volume.

    Individual files in a FlexGroup volume cannot be recovered.

  • NDMP restartable backup extension (RBE) is not supported for FlexGroup volumes.

  • Environment variables EXCLUDE and MULTI_SUBTREE_NAMES are not supported for FlexGroup volumes.

  • The ndmpcopy command is supported for data transfer between FlexVol and FlexGroup volumes.

    If you revert from Data ONTAP 9.7 to an earlier version, the incremental transfer information of the previous transfers is not retained and therefore, you must perform a baseline copy after reverting.

• VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI)

• Conversion of a FlexVol volume to a FlexGroup volume

• FlexGroup volumes as FlexCache origin volumes

Features supported starting from ONTAP 9.6​

• Continuously available SMB shares

• MetroCluster configurations

• Renaming a FlexGroup volume (volume rename command)

• Shrinking or reducing the size of a FlexGroup volume (volume size command)

• Elastic sizing

• Lenovo Aggregate Encryption (LAE)

• Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Features supported starting from ONTAP 9.5​

• ODX copy offload

• Storage-Level Access Guard

• Enhancements to change notifications for SMB shares

  Change notifications are sent for changes to the parent directory on which the changenotify property is set and for changes to all of the subdirectories in that parent directory.

• FabricPool

• Quota enforcement

• Qtree statistics

• Adaptive QoS for files in FlexGroup volumes

• FlexCache (cache only; FlexGroup as origin supported in ONTAP 9.7)

• FPolicy

• File auditing

• Throughput floor (QoS Min) and adaptive QoS for FlexGroup volumes

• Throughput ceiling (QoS Max) and throughput floor (QoS Min) for files in FlexGroup volumes

  You use the volume file modify command to manage the QoS policy group that is associated with a file.

• Relaxed SnapMirror limits
• SMB 3.x multichannel