According to the white paper http://www.netapp.com/technology/level3/1004.html, in a clustered failover (CF) setup 2 filers would be attached to the same fc loop, 1 filer to the A port and 1 to the B port (to determine who is "master" for that set of disks).
Now, I take this to mean that on any given loop, only 1 filer can be master for that loop. Based on this assumption, how does this alter the max shelves per filer?
That is, on a f740 I can have 2 loops (based on the 8 shelves per loop guideline and 16 shelves per filer on a 740). If this f740 and another f740 were part of the same CF setup and both filers were "active", would I be limited to a single loop of active shelves on each filer? Or would I be able to have 4 loops, 2 active and 2 in standby (ie: my partners shelves)?
Or does the 8 shelves per loop guideline not apply to the CF setup?
I just looked through the f700 hardware guide as well as the ONTAP 5.2 sys admin guide (thanks for having that up). The chapter on CF is good. Definitely. Ok, so the hardware guide says that a f740 and an f760 can both only have 112 fcal drives, 2 fcal loops max.
How does the 760 then do 1.4TB of storage and the 740 960GB? Seems there are 56 or so drives missing.... another loop?
So, my bottom line question is: in a CF setup with 2 f740's, what is the maximum *useable* storage space I will have (combined)?
Also, why does a f630 get to have 3 fcal loops?
Boy, I am just full of questions tonight...
Thanks.
Alexei