No, it uses FW Ultra SCSI-3 disks, not FC. Yes, NDMP backup is supported. Limitations? Well, as it's positioned to be the NEW entry level Netapp (at 3300 NFS ops/sec, it actually about 30% faster than the old low end F720, and about 30% less expensive), it IS limited to 648GB MAX storage (6 internal plus 12 external in 18GB & 36GB flavors), as opposed to the F720's limit of ~500GB. Still doin' hot swap, RAID4, snapshots, OnTap, WAFL, everything that's cool about a Filer and more! :-D
-----Original Message----- From: Clawson, Simon [mailto:simon_clawson@mentorg.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2001 7:30 AM To: 'toasters@mathworks.com' Subject: F85 series
Has anyone had any experince with the F85? Does it use the same disks as the 700 & 800's? Is it possible to back it up via NDMP? What are its limitations?
Simon
Simon Clawson HDS Team Systems Administrator Mentor Graphics Uk Rivergate London Road Newbury Berkshire RG14 2QB <<Clawson, Simon.vcf>>
On Tue, 20 Feb 2001 08:16:55 PST, "White, Lance" wrote:
No, it uses FW Ultra SCSI-3 disks, not FC. Yes, NDMP backup is supported. Limitations? Well, as it's positioned to be the NEW entry level Netapp (at 3300 NFS ops/sec, it actually about 30% faster than the old low end F720, and about 30% less expensive), it IS limited to 648GB MAX storage (6 internal plus 12 external in 18GB & 36GB flavors), as opposed to the F720's limit of ~500GB. Still doin' hot swap, RAID4, snapshots, OnTap, WAFL, everything that's cool about a Filer and more! :-D
6?
I wonder why they chose 6 over 7 (the drive count in the older scsi trays).
Rob++ ---------------------------------------- Rob Windsor E-Mail - mailto:rob_windsor@adc.com Senior Unix Systems Administrator Voice - phone:972-680-6919 Computer Services Fax - phone:972-680-0370 Broadband Access and Transport Group __o ADC Telecommunications _`<,_ Richardson, TX 75082 (_)/ (_)
On Tue, Feb 20, 2001 at 08:16:55AM -0800, White, Lance wrote:
No, it uses FW Ultra SCSI-3 disks, not FC. Yes, NDMP backup is supported. Limitations? Well, as it's positioned to be the NEW entry level Netapp (at 3300 NFS ops/sec, it actually about 30% faster than the old low end F720, and about 30% less expensive), it IS limited to 648GB MAX storage (6 internal plus 12 external in 18GB & 36GB flavors), as opposed to the F720's limit of ~500GB. Still doin' hot swap, RAID4, snapshots, OnTap, WAFL, everything that's cool about a Filer and more! :-D
The box sounds cool. It's about time a box of this price point was available again :)
I have a (long-time) gripe in the way it's advertised. It's a gripe I have with every vendor. I wish NetApp would advertise the *usable* diskspace of the machine (as seen by a client OS or df, for example), not the raw diskspace calculated by taking the disk vendor size and multiplying by the number of disks.
I know this makes the boxes appear more expensive per usable megabyte, but it's being more honest to the client, and once you explain to the client to take into account all the overheads, and how to do the same math on competing options (e.g, h/w raid + vxfs on Solaris, EMC, etc), then you (NetApp) appear to be delivering accurate technical information.
For example, there's no WAY an F720 has 500 GB of usable space. Out of the box, with default snap reserve, it barely has 300 GB, where GB == 2^30, which is what client based tools (such as df and the `Properties' box in Windows) use, not 10^9, which is what (overzealous) disk vendors use.
The usuable capacity of an F720 is trivial to calculate: 14 x 36 GB disks, utilised as: 1 hot spare, 1 parity, 12 data disks
Each data disk has 24840 MB usable, calculated as: 34500 megabytes (rightsized by OnTAP) - 10% wafl overhead (is this 8% in OnTAP 6.x?) - 20% snap reserve (default; but often reduced to 10%) = 24840 megabytes
So, 12 x 24840 = 298080 MB = ~ 291 GB
Tweaking the numbers to 8% wafl overhead (from OnTAP 6) and 10% snap reserve gives an F720 approximately 334 GB of space (from 500 GB `raw').
Based on the info Lance White gives above, an F85 with 36 GB drives, consisting of 15 data disks, 1 hot spare, 2 parity, 8% wafl overhead, 10% snap reserve would have a usuable capacity at the client of: 15 x (34500 - 8% - 10%) = 15 x 28556 = 428490 MB = 418 GB
418 GB is a bit less than the ``648 GB MAX storage'' that Lance quotes above.
In general, take away approximately one third of the raw capacity that NetApp quote and that will give you an guestimate on the usuable capacity that will suit most client's needs.
Luke.
PS: I'm sure some people have seen or heard this rant before :)
Disclaimer: I like NetApp. I worked at NetApp for a while as an SE. I just believe in being honest to the technical people you're selling to, especially those who have to justify to their management why the (not cheap) 500 GB box they bought ran out of space at 300 GB.
-- Luke Mewburn lukem@wasabisystems.com http://www.wasabisystems.com Luke Mewburn lukem@netbsd.org http://www.netbsd.org Wasabi Systems - providing NetBSD sales, support and services.
On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Luke Mewburn wrote:
Disclaimer: I like NetApp. I worked at NetApp for a while as an SE. I just believe in being honest to the technical people you're selling to, especially those who have to justify to their management why the (not cheap) 500 GB box they bought ran out of space at 300 GB.
I don't blame Netapp for this... they are virtually forced to market their products this way because everyone else does! EMC, Sun, IBM, etc. aren't going to say "Hey, let's all just play nice and advertise *real* numbers in our marketing literature and benchmarks". They will mostly likely use Netapp's honesty against them. ;-)
Any semi-decent technical person will know not to trust the glossy ads, and I *do* hope that every Netapp customer has had technical discussions with a Netapp SE before becoming their customer. The SE can explain how "12TB raw capacity" translates into real-world numbers. If advertising larger raw capacities helps Netapp get into more IT shops, then so be it. If Netapp doesn't do it, you know the likes of EMC will.
So, is there an upgrade path for this box?
We (my work) are an ASP, and we are looking at using a NetApp for our colocation cage. Right now, we are pretty much going back and forth between the F720 and the F760. We really only need the 720 for the near future, but if the "upgrade" to the 760 turns out to be more like a replacement of the 720 (i.e. we get very little back from trading it in), then we might go that route.
But this F85 piques my interest. Roughly, what is its price point, and can the head be swapped out when it is time to upgrade? I would guess (after a brief survey of the website) that there isn't an intended upgrade path from this model.
Thanks, Jordan ----- Original Message ----- From: "White, Lance" Lance.White@netapp.com To: "'Clawson, Simon'" simon_clawson@mentorg.com; toasters@mathworks.com Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2001 8:16 AM Subject: RE: F85 series
No, it uses FW Ultra SCSI-3 disks, not FC. Yes, NDMP backup is supported. Limitations? Well, as it's positioned to be the NEW entry level Netapp
(at
3300 NFS ops/sec, it actually about 30% faster than the old low end F720, and about 30% less expensive), it IS limited to 648GB MAX storage (6 internal plus 12 external in 18GB & 36GB flavors), as opposed to the
F720's
limit of ~500GB. Still doin' hot swap, RAID4, snapshots, OnTap, WAFL, everything that's cool about a Filer and more! :-D
-----Original Message----- From: Clawson, Simon [mailto:simon_clawson@mentorg.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2001 7:30 AM To: 'toasters@mathworks.com' Subject: F85 series
Has anyone had any experince with the F85? Does it use the same disks as
the
700 & 800's? Is it possible to back it up via NDMP? What are its limitations?
Simon
-
Brian Tao -
Jordan Share -
Luke Mewburn -
Rob Windsor -
White, Lance