Aggregates are containers for the disks managed by a node. You can use aggregates to isolate workloads with different performance demands, to tier data with different access patterns, or to segregate data for regulatory purposes.
- For business-critical applications that need the lowest possible latency and the highest possible performance, you might create an aggregate consisting entirely of SSDs.
- To tier data with different access patterns, you can create a hybrid aggregate, deploying flash as high-performance cache for a working data set, while using lower-cost HDDs or object storage for less frequently accessed data. A FlashPool consists of both SSDs and HDDs. A FabricPool consists of an all-SSD aggregate with an attached object store.
- If you need to segregate archived data from active data for regulatory purposes, you can use an aggregate consisting of capacity HDDs, or a combination of performance and capacity HDDs.