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Provisioning storage by creating a Flash Pool aggregate manually

You can use Storage Manager to create a Flash Pool aggregate manually, or to convert an existing HDD aggregate to a Flash Pool aggregate by adding SSDs. When you create a new HDD aggregate, you can provision an SSD cache to it and create a Flash Pool aggregate .

Before you begin

  • You must be aware of the platform-specific best practices and workload-specific best practices for the Flash Pool aggregate SSD tier size and configuration.

  • All of the HDDs must be in the zeroed state.

  • If you want to add SSDs to the aggregate, all of the existing SSDs and dedicated SSDs must be of the same size.

About this task

  • You cannot use partitioned SSDs while creating a Flash Pool aggregate.

  • You cannot mirror the aggregates if the cache source is storage pools.

  • If you are creating an aggregate on a four-node cluster in ONTAP Select, the mirrored aggregate option is selected by default.

  • If the disk type of the aggregate disks is FSAS or MSATA, and the disk size is equal to or larger than 10 TB, then RAID-TEC is the only option available for RAID type.

  1. Create an aggregate by using one of the following methods:
    • Click Applications & Tiers > Storage Tiers > Add Aggregate .
    • Click Storage > Aggregate & Disks > Aggregates > Create .
  2. Enable the Manually Create Aggregate option to create an aggregate.
  3. In the Create Aggregate window, specify the name of the aggregate, the disk type, and the number of disks or partitions to include for the HDDs in the aggregate.
  4. If you want to mirror the aggregate, select the Mirror this aggregate check box.

    For MetroCluster configurations, creating unmirrored aggregates is restricted. Therefore, the mirroring option is enabled by default for MetroCluster configurations.
  5. Click Use Flash Pool Cache with this aggregate .
  6. Specify the cache source:
    If you want to select the cache source as...Then...
    Storage pools

    1. Select Storage pools as the Cache Source .

    2. Select the storage pool from which the cache can be obtained, and then specify the cache size.

    3. Modify the RAID type, if required.

    Dedicated SSDs

    1. Select Dedicated SSDs as the Cache Source .

    2. Select the SSD size and the number of SSDs to include in the aggregate.

    3. Modify the RAID configuration, if required:

      1. Click Change .

      2. In the Change RAID Configuration dialog box, specify the RAID type and the RAID group size.

      3. Click Save .

  7. Click Create .

Result

The Flash Pool aggregate is created with the specified configuration, and is added to the list of aggregates in the Aggregates window .

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