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Storage Manager enhancements

You should become familiar with the features that have been added or changed in this release of Storage Manager.

Features and enhancements added in ONTAP 9.4​

  • NVMe protocol

    The NVM Express (NVMe) protocol is now supported by ONTAP and can be configured in Storage Manager. NVMe is an alternative protocol for block access, similar to the existing iSCSi or FC protocols.

  • Aggregate recommender

    You can create an aggregate based on storage recommendations. Storage Manager analyzes the configuration of your storage system and provides storage recommendations such as the number of aggregates that will be created, the available nodes, and the available spare disks.

  • FabricPool-enabled aggregates enhancements

    FabricPool-enabled aggregates have been enhanced to support the following features and functionalities:

    • New UI navigation for the external capacity tier menu

    • New Auto caching policy

    • Support for inactive (cold) data

    • Support for object store certificate for

      StorageGRID external capacity tier

    • Support for Microsoft Azure Blob storage external capacity tier

    • More information in the capacity tab of the cluster dashboard

    • Support ONTAP Select

    • Support for viewing external capacity tier, other than

      StorageGRID , Amazon AWS S3, and Microsoft Azure Blob storage, created using the command-line interface (CLI).

  • FlexGroup volumes enhancements

    FlexGroup volumes include the following enhancements and new features:

    • Support for advanced options such as volume encryption, storage efficiency, and QoS.

    • Protect volumes

    • More information in the protection tab of the cluster dashboard

  • Support for configuring Snapshot copies

    You can configure Snapshot copies by setting a schedule to an existing Snapshot policy. Beginning with ONTAP 9.4, you can have fewer than 1024 Snapshot copies of a FlexVol volume.

  • Storage efficiency enhancements

    The percentage of logical space used and the status of logical space reporting is now displayed in the Storage Manager Volumes window.

  • Removed partial support for infinite volumes

    You cannot create infinite volumes and protect infinite volumes by using Storage Manager .

  • Support for SMB Multichannel

    You can enable SMB protocol to establish multiple channels between a SMB3.0 session and transport connections, specifically for higher performance and fault tolerance and resiliency.