NetApp FAS Disk Shelves and Storage Media
Disk Shelves, Storage Media, and Cabling for NetApp FAS Systems

Overview:

Provide reliability and flexibility to support a broad set of application needs

Addressing the performance, capacity, and density needs of different applications can be a tricky balancing act, especially in shared virtual infrastructures in which the supported workloads can change quickly.

Storage administrators must constantly think ahead. Their infrastructure must be highly available, contain the right mix of HDD and SSD storage, and deliver the necessary data security for the changing requirements of modern IT deployments—including the cloud.

Acquiring and supporting separate storage systems for each workload can quickly exhaust your available budget, staff, and resources. When you add the ever-present need to optimize power, cooling, and floor space utilization, it’s clear that storage hardware must be more flexible than ever

Leading flexibility, performance, connectivity, and cross-platform leverage from NetApp

Designed for the most demanding environments, the NetApp FAS architecture offers a high degree of flexibility and choice in supported disk shelves and storage media. From high-capacity HDDs to high-performance SSDs to self-encrypting drives, NetApp delivers the right drive technology to meet your specific capacity, density, performance, and security needs.

Our selection of disk shelves helps you optimize for capacity, performance density, or versatility. You can attach different types of disk shelves to a single storage system to satisfy diverse requirements without having to deploy new storage systems. Your infrastructure is then more agile and more responsive to your business needs. For enhanced flexibility and resilience, optical SAS delivers high-performance, low-latency connectivity—between controllers and shelves—across extended data center distances.

NetApp is a proven leader in the use of flash technology to optimize storage cost and performance. NetApp Flash Pool intelligent caching technology combines HDD and SSD, caching “hot” data to SSDs in real time to accelerate performance. All-SSD shelves provide the highest performance for persistent storage.

The NetApp family of disk shelves delivers the enterprise-class resiliency and availability that you expect from the NetApp Data ONTAP operating system. Plus, the same drives and shelves work across all FAS platforms with nondisruptive controller upgrades for the utmost in flexibility. All shelves and media are supported in clustered Data ONTAP configurations.

NetApp disk shelves and storage media provide flexibility, reliability, storage efficiency, and cross-platform leverage.

NetApp offers a full range of high-capacity, high-performance, and self-encrypting disk drives plus ultra-high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs). Disk shelf options let you optimize for capacity, performance, or versatility. NetApp Optical SAS interconnects simplify infrastructure while providing industry-leading performance.

Gain cross-platform leverage. 
The same drives and shelves work across all FAS storage platforms. Nondisruptive controller upgrades allow you to change platforms without additional media purchases or data migration.

Enhance performance with flash. 
Self-managing Virtual Storage Tier technologies, including Flash Pool, optimize data placement on flash for maximum performance—reducing by up to 75% the number of spindles needed for a given level of performance.

Strengthen security. 
Enhance physical data security and prevent unauthorized data access with NetApp Storage Encryption (NSE) and a full line of self-encrypting drives.

Achieve enterprise-class resiliency. 
Full redundancy is standard in all disk shelf designs. Advanced features such as alternate control path for out-of-band management, NetApp RAID-DP® for superior data protection, and Maintenance Center for advanced error recovery protect the availability of your data. Industry-first, optical SAS delivers high-performance, low-latency SAS connectivity across extended data center distances (up to 500M) for enhanced flexibility and resilience.

Key Benefits

• High Availability and Resiliency
  Full redundancy, multipath connections, out-of-band management, and advanced analytics are standard.
• Integrated Flash SSD Support
  Choose full solid-state disk (SSD) configurations or mix SSD and HDD to combine the performance of flash with the capacity of hard disks.
• Optical SAS Connectivity
  Deliver high-performance, low-latency SAS connections across distances of up to 500m for enhanced flexibility and resilience.
• Flexibility to Optimize Storage for a Variety of Needs
  NetApp FAS disk shelves and storage media give you flexibility to optimize for high performance or high capacity or to strike a balance.
• Greater Simplicity
  The same media and disk shelves work for all NetApp FAS systems, so you can upgrade controllers and keep shelves and media in place.

Features:

Highly Resilient and Available

To improve overall system availability, NetApp disk shelves are deployed by using multipath high availability with storage controller pairs. In addition:

• Full redundancy, including fans and power supplies, is standard in disk shelf designs.
• Alternate control path provides out-of-band management connections to each disk shelf.
• NetApp RAID DP technology offers superior data protection and performance over traditional RAID implementations.
• Maintenance Center performs proactive health monitoring of drives, and, based on drive diagnostics, it distinguishes between transient events and real underlying issues.

Optical SAS Connectivity

Designed to streamline deployment and give you more freedom in where you place storage, this NetApp solution is the first to deliver optical SAS connectivity. The easy-to-use, direct-connect solution can span distances of up to 500m for enhanced flexibility and resilience.

In busy data centers, finding free rack space where you need it can be a challenge. With optical SAS, you can add disk shelves to your existing NetApp storage with less concern for distance limitations. Now you can place expansion storage many aisles away or on another floor. Optical SAS also greatly simplifies the deployment of NetApp MetroCluster technology for separation distances within the 500m limit.

NetApp optical SAS cabling:

• Enables 4-lane 6Gb/s optical SAS connectivity
• Uses existing QSFP connectors and so requires no additional hardware
• Supports both multimode (OM4) and single-mode (OS1) optical fiber types
• Is compatible with an existing optical patch panel infrastructure

Optimized Performance and Capacity

Many workloads are characterized by a large dataset with a small working set of active data that tends to change unpredictably. Previously, you had to choose between storage media that optimized for performance or that optimized for cost. Now it’s possible to optimize for both.

With Flash Pool technology, NetApp supports the combination of HDDs and SSDs to dynamically cache random read and write operations, accelerating throughput while minimizing latency. Flash Pool takes advantage of the latency and throughput benefits of SSDs while maintaining the mass storage capacity of HDDs.

An existing aggregate can be converted into a Flash Pool configuration without requiring any data copying, downtime, or disruptions to data access.

Storage Media to Meet a Variety of Needs

NetApp offers a variety of SSDs and HDDs to meet your needs, including both performance HDDs and high-capacity HDDs. You can deploy these drives alone or in hybrid configurations that combine HDD and flash.

Performance HDDs. Small form factor (SFF) 2.5-inch 10K RPM drives are the core of our performance HDD offerings. These drives offer great performance density and a variety of capacity options.

High-capacity HDDs. You can maximize storage density and minimize cost per gigabyte by using high-capacity disk drives, deployed as secondary storage or for production workloads.

If you are concerned about security, self-encrypting drives are available in SSD, performance, and high-capacity options.

NetApp Storage Encryption is the NetApp implementation of full-disk encryption using self-encrypting drives. All data on a drive is automatically encrypted, so you know that data at rest is protected. Key management is provided by an external appliance or software.

DS2246 Disk Shelf
The NetApp DS2246 is a performance-optimized disk shelf that packs 24 drives in only 2U of rack space using SFF drives. Compared with the 4U-high DS4246 disk shelf, the DS2246 doubles the storage density, increases performance density (IOPS per rack unit) by 60%, and reduces power consumption by 30% to 50%.

DS4246 Disk Shelf
The NetApp DS4246 provides an excellent balance between performance and capacity. It is 4U high and supports 6Gb/s SAS connections. It can be configured with either 24 large form factor (LFF) high-capacity disk drives or a combination of SSDs and high-capacity disk drives to support Flash Pool configurations.

DS4486 Disk Shelf
The capacity-optimized DS4486 holds 48 high-capacity disk drives. This disk shelf looks like the DS4246 from the front. However, it is slightly longer and uses a tandem disk carrier to enclose twice as many LFF disk drives in 4U of rack space. In contrast to many capacity-optimized disk shelves, the DS4486 can be serviced from the front, and 10 DS4486 shelves in a 42U rack weigh less than 2,000 pounds (910kg). The rack can be supported by a raised floor in a traditional data center.

Selection Criteria	Storage Media	Disk Shelf
Highest IOPS for random I/O Lowest latency	SSDs	DS2246
Flash Pool support	SSD shelf Mixed shelf (SSDs + HDDs)	DS2246 DS2246 DS4246
HDD performance	Performance (10K RPM) HDDs	DS2246
Maximum capacity Lowest cost per gigabyte Maximum storage density	High-capacity (7.2K RPM) HDDs	DS4246 DS4486
Data security NetApp Storage Encryption	Self-encrypting disk drives (AES-256)	DS2246 DS4246

Specifications:

All data in this table applies to dual-controller configurations

	DS2246	DS4246	DS4486
Rack units	2U	4U	4U
Drives per enclosure	24	24	48
Drives per rack unit	12	6	12
Drive form factor	2.5" small form factor	3.5" large form factor	3.5" large form factor
Drive carrier	Single drive	Single drive	Tandem (dual) drives
High-capacity disk drives	N/A	2TB, 4TB, 6TB and 8TB at 7.2K RPM	4TB, 6TB and 8TB at 7.2K RPM
Performance disk drives	600GB, 900GB, 1.2TB and 1.8TB at 10K RPM	N/A	N/A
Self-encrypting drives3	900GB and 1.8TB at 10K RPM, 800GB and 1.6TB SSD, 800GB SSD + 1.8TB at 10K RPM AES-256, FIPS 140-2 compliant	4TB and 6TB at 7.2K RPM, 800GB SSD + 6TB at 7.2K RPM AES-256 FIPS 140-2 compliant	N/A
Solid state drives (full and mixed shelf)	400GB, 800GB, 1.6TB, 3.8TB, 400GB + 1.2TB, 800GB +1.8TB	400GB + 2TB, 400GB + 4TB, 400GB + 6TB, 800GB + 8TB	N/A
Controller Support	FAS2500 series, FAS8000 series, FAS2200 series, FAS/V3200 series[5], FAS/V6200 series	FAS2500 series, FAS8000 series, FAS2200 series, FAS/V3200 series[5], FAS/V6200 series	FAS8000 series, FAS/V3200 series[4], FAS/V6200 series
Shelf I/O modules	Dual IOM6 modules	Dual IOM6 modules	Dual IOM6 modules
Optical SAS support
Power supply/cooling fans	Dual, hot-pluggable, integrated power supply/fan assemblies	Redundant, hot-pluggable, integrated power supply/fan assemblies; Dual supplies required for high-capacity disk drives and SSDs.	Redundant, hot-pluggable, integrated power supply/fan assemblies; Quadruple supplies required.
AC input power voltage (autoranging, VRMS)	100–120V or 200–240V	100–120V or 200–240V	100–120V or 200–240V
AC input power frequency	50–60 Hz	50–60 Hz	50–60 Hz
DC input power	Not available	Not available	Not available
Weight—fully loaded	49 lbs (22.2 kg)	110 lbs (49.9 kg)	150 lbs (68kg)
Dimensions	Height: 3.4 in. (8.5 cm) Width: 19 in. (48.0 cm)  Depth: 19.1 in. (48.4 cm)	Height: 7 in. (17.8 cm)  Width: 19 in. (48.3 cm)  Depth: 24 in. (61 cm)	Height: 7 in. (17.8 cm)  Width: 19 in. (48.3 cm)  Depth: 28 in. (71 cm)
Clearance dimensions	Front—cooling: 6 in. (15.3 cm)  Front—maintenance: 12 in. (30.5 cm)  Rear—cooling and maintenance: 25 in. (55.9 cm)	Front—cooling: 6 in. (15.3 cm)  Front—maintenance: 12 in. (30.5 cm)  Rear—cooling and maintenance: 25 in. (55.9 cm)	Front—cooling: 6 in. (15.3 cm)  Front—maintenance: 12 in. (30.5 cm)  Rear—cooling and maintenance: 36 in. (91.4 cm)
Operating acoustic noise	6.2 bels LwAd (2 PCMs)	7.0 bels LwAd (4 PCMs)	7.0 bels LwAd (4 PCMs)
Temperature	Operating: 50° F to 104° F (10° C to 40° C)  Nonoperating: –40° F to 158° F (–40° C to 70° C)
Relative humidity	Operating: 20% to 80% noncondensing;  Nonoperating: 10 to 95% noncondensing
Altitude	Operating: 0 to 10,000 ft (0 to 3,045 m)  Nonoperating: –1,000 to 40,000 ft (–305 to 12,192 m)

¹ The DS4246 disk shelf only supports high-capacity disk configurations and "Mixed Shelf" SSD configurations that combine SSDs with high-capacity disk drives.
³ NSE relies on the drive manufacturer for assurance-level certification. Self-encrypting drives (SEDs) used with NetApp® Storage. Encryption (NSE) cannot be mixed with non-encrypting HDDs in the same storage system. SnapLock and MetroCluster are not supported with NSE.

Views:

DS2246

DS4246 and DS4486

Documentation:

Download the NetApp FAS Disk Shelves and Storage Media Datasheet (.PDF)