Hi,
I will preface this by stating that I am very green when it comes to NetApp things.
OK, we have a Filer (not sure of the exact model...I can post that if needed) and I am not sure of the level of software we use (once again I can find this) but my question is about Disks, Volumes and Qtrees.
A volume is a bunch of disks (LUNS) yes? - ie if I get 5 66GB disks RAID 4 it gives me about a 200GB volume? - The size of the volume is directly proportional to the amount of disks added to it??
Qtrees are effectively virtual volumes that 'break up' the volume even more (ie a 200GB volume can have 8 x 25GB Qtrees (or 1 x 50GB Qtree and 6 x 25GB Qtrees)?
Qtrees can be increased or decreased at any level (if I add a disk to a volume all of that space can go to a Qtree or none of it while the volume MUST increase by the amount of physical disk added?
If I want to put data on the filer (say Exchange data, user homedrives and Departmental data) I can put this data on separate Qtrees in a single volume? Or should I put the data on separate volumes and not worry about Qtrees?
Is it better to have 1 massive volume and split it into qtrees as needed or is there a limit on volume size (performance problems if volume too big?)?
Sorry if this is totally incorrect...if it is please feel free to correct me as I said I have had nothing to do with NetApp stuff before (although I am quite handy on a HDS SAN :)) But if I am right, please let me know as I need this information.
Sorry for taking so long with this email.