Provisioning cache to aggregates by adding SSDs

You can use System Manager to add storage pools or dedicated SSDs to provision cache by converting an existing non-root HDD aggregate or a root aggregate that does not contain partitioned disks to a Flash Pool aggregate.

Before you begin

The aggregate must be online.
There must be sufficient spare SSDs or allocation units in the storage pool that can be assigned as cache disks.
All of the nodes in the cluster must be running ONTAP 8.3 or later.
If the cluster is in a mixed-version state, you can use the command-line interface to create a Flash Pool aggregate and then provision SSD cache.
You must have identified a valid 64-bit non-root aggregate composed of HDDs that can be converted to a Flash Pool aggregate.
The aggregate must not contain any array LUNs.

About this task

You must be aware of platform-specific and workload-specific best practices for Flash Pool aggregate SSD tier size and configuration.

Steps

Choose one of the following methods:
- Click Applications & Tiers > Storage Tiers.
- Click Storage > Aggregates & Disks > Aggregates.
In the Storage Tiers window, select the aggregate, and then click More Actions > Add Cache.

In the Add Cache dialog box, perform the appropriate action:

If you selected the cache source as…	Do this…
Storage pools	Select the storage pool from which cache can be obtained. Specify the cache size. Modify the RAID type, if required.
Dedicated SSDs	Select the SSD size and the number of SSDs to include, and optionally modify the RAID configuration: Click Change. In the Change RAID Configuration dialog box, specify the RAID type and RAID group size, and then click Save.

Click Add.
For mirrored aggregates, an Add Cache dialog box is displayed with the information that twice the number of selected disks will be added.
In the Add Cache dialog box, click Yes.

Result

The cache disks are added to the selected aggregate.