In the current versions, it does not help. The goal of flexgroups is to distribute.

DBs and VMDKs are generally large(r) files. Flexgroups work with files and will distribute a file to a constituent.

It will monitor space usage to help with the distribution.

When large files are in play, it will drop a chunk onto a flexgroup member but that plays a little on the algorithms for placement of normal (smaller) files.

--tmac

Tim McCarthy, Principal Consultant

Proud Member of the #NetAppATeam

I Blog at TMACsRack

On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 4:21 PM John Stoffel <john@stoffel.org> wrote:

>>>>> "tmac" == tmac <tmacmd@gmail.com> writes:

tmac> Also, if you are doing NAS data (and unstructured, like home
tmac> dirs, NOT databases or VMDKs) you should upgrade to 9.7P5 and
tmac> use FlexGroups which would utilize your entire system:
tmac> aggregates on both nodes, Networking on both nodes, CPU/RAM on
tmac> both nodes. Actually can improve performance!

Unfortunately there's no hope of me getting to that release any time
soon, but do DBs and VMDKs lose performance with FlexGroups? And does
it really help on just two node clusters? I would assume it might
help on four node clusters on up.

John