Administrator Guide

Feature Description
Snapshots Redirect-on-write snapshots that are user-accessible over the network.
Replication NAS volume-level, snapshot-based, asynchronous replication to remote FluidFS clusters to enable
disaster recovery.
NDMP backup Snapshot-based, asynchronous, two-way backup (direct NDMP), or three-way backup (remote
NDMP) over Ethernet to certied third-party backup solutions.
Antivirus scanning SMB antivirus scanning ooading using certied third-party, Internet Content Adaptation Protocol
(ICAP)-enabled antivirus solutions.
Monitoring Built-in performance monitoring and capacity planning.
Overview of the FS8600 Hardware
Scale-out NAS consists of one to six FS8600 appliances congured as a FluidFS cluster. Each NAS appliance is a rack-mounted 2U chassis
that contains two hot-swappable NAS controllers in an active-active conguration. In a NAS appliance, the second NAS controller with
which one NAS
controller is paired is called the peer controller. Scale-out NAS supports expansion, that is, you can start with one NAS
appliance and add NAS appliances to the FluidFS cluster as needed to increase performance.
NAS appliance numbers start at 1 and NAS controller numbers start at 0. Appliance 1 contains Controller 0 and Controller 1, Appliance 2
contains Controller 2 and Controller 3, and so on. To identify the physical hardware displayed in Storage Manager, you must match the
service tag shown in Storage Manager with the service tag printed on a sticker on the front-right side of the NAS appliance.
The following FS8600 appliance congurations are available. All NAS appliances in a FluidFS cluster must use the same conguration—
mixing 1GbE and 10GbE, or Fibre Channel and iSCSI, is not supported.
• 1Gb Ethernet client connectivity with 8Gb Fibre Channel back‑end connectivity to the Storage Center
• 10Gb Ethernet client connectivity with 8Gb Fibre Channel back‑end connectivity to the Storage Center
• 10Gb Ethernet client connectivity with 10Gb Ethernet iSCSI back‑end connectivity to the Storage Center
NOTE
: There are two RAM congurations for the 10GbE models - 24GB and 48GB, which should not be mixed in the same
appliance, but can be mixed in the cluster.
Internal Backup Power Supply
Each NAS controller is equipped with an internal backup power supply (BPS) that protects data during a power failure. The BPS provides
continuous power to the NAS controllers for a minimum of 5 minutes in case of a power failure and has sucient battery power to allow
the NAS controllers to safely shut down. In addition, the BPS provides enough time for the NAS controllers to write all data from the cache
to nonvolatile internal storage.
The NAS controllers regularly monitor the BPS battery status, which requires the BPS to maintain a minimum level of power for normal
operation. To ensure the BPS battery status is accurate, the NAS controllers routinely undergo battery calibration cycles. During a battery
calibration cycle, the BPS goes through charge and discharge cycles; therefore, battery error events during this process are expected. A
battery calibration cycle takes up to 7 days to complete. If a NAS controller starts a battery calibration cycle, and the peer NAS controller
BPS has failed, the NAS controllers enter journaling mode. Entering this mode might impact performance, so you should repair a failed BPS
as soon as possible.
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FluidFS Administration