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Storage limits in Google Cloud

Contributors netapp-rlithman netapp-bcammett
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Cloud Volumes ONTAP has storage configuration limits to provide reliable operations. For best performance, do not configure your system at the maximum values.

Maximum system capacity by license

The maximum system capacity for a Cloud Volumes ONTAP system is determined by its license. The maximum system capacity includes disk-based storage plus object storage used for data tiering.

NetApp doesn't support exceeding the system capacity limit. If you reach the licensed capacity limit, BlueXP displays an action required message and no longer allows you to add additional disks.

For some configurations, disk limits prevent you from reaching the capacity limit by using disks alone. You can reach the capacity limit by tiering inactive data to object storage. Refer to the disk limits below for more details.

License Maximum system capacity (disks + object storage)

Freemium

500 GB

PAYGO Explore

2 TB (data tiering is not supported with Explore)

PAYGO Standard

10 TB

PAYGO Premium

368 TB

Node-based license

2 PiB (requires multiple licenses)

Capacity-based license

2 PiB
For an HA pair, is the licensed capacity limit per node or for the entire HA pair?

The capacity limit is for the entire HA pair. It is not per node. For example, if you use the Premium license, you can have up to 368 TB of capacity between both nodes.

For an HA pair, does mirrored data count against the licensed capacity limit?

No, it doesn't. Data in an HA pair is synchronously mirrored between the nodes so that the data is available in the event of failure in Google Cloud. For example, if you purchase an 8 TB disk on node A, BlueXP also allocates an 8 TB disk on node B that is used for mirrored data. While 16 TB of capacity was provisioned, only 8 TB counts against the license limit.

Aggregate limits

Cloud Volumes ONTAP groups Google Cloud Platform disks into aggregates. Aggregates provide storage to volumes.

Parameter Limit

Maximum number of data aggregates 1

  • 99 for single node

  • 64 for an entire HA pair

Maximum aggregate size

256 TB of raw capacity 2

Disks per aggregate

1-6 3

Maximum number of RAID groups per aggregate

1

Notes:

  1. The maximum number of data aggregates doesn't include the root aggregate.

  2. The aggregate capacity limit is based on the disks that comprise the aggregate. The limit does not include object storage used for data tiering.

  3. All disks in an aggregate must be the same size.

Disk and tiering limits

The table below shows the maximum system capacity with disks alone, and with disks and cold data tiering to object storage. The disk limits are specific to disks that contain user data. The limits do not include the boot disk, root disk, or NVRAM.

Parameter Limit

Maximum data disks

  • 124 for single node systems

  • 123 per node for HA pairs

Maximum disk size

64 TB

Maximum system capacity with disks alone

256 TB 1

Maximum system capacity with disks and cold data tiering to a Google Cloud Storage bucket

Depends on the license. Refer to the maximum system capacity limits above.

1 This limit is defined by virtual machine limits in Google Cloud Platform.

Storage VM limits

Some configurations enable you to create additional storage VMs (SVMs) for Cloud Volumes ONTAP.

These are the tested limits. While it is theoretically possible to configure additional storage VMs, it's not supported.

Learn how to create additional storage VMs.

License type Storage VM limit

Freemium

24 storage VMs total 1

Capacity-based PAYGO or BYOL 2

24 storage VMs total 1

Node-based BYOL 3

24 storage VMs total 1

Node-based PAYGO

  • 1 storage VM for serving data

  • 1 storage VM for disaster recovery

  1. These 24 storage VMs can serve data or be configured for disaster recovery (DR).

  2. For capacity-based licensing, there are no extra licensing costs for additional storage VMs, but there is a 4 TiB minimum capacity charge per storage VM. For example, if you create two storage VMs and each has 2 TiB of provisioned capacity, you'll be charged a total of 8 TiB.

  3. For node-based BYOL, an add-on license is required for each additional data-serving storage VM beyond the first storage VM that comes with Cloud Volumes ONTAP by default. Contact your account team to obtain a storage VM add-on license.

    Storage VMs that you configure for disaster recovery (DR) don't require an add-on license (they are free of charge), but they do count against the storage VM limit. For example, if you have 12 data-serving storage VMs and 12 storage VMs configured for disaster recovery, then you've reached the limit and can't create any additional storage VMs.

Logical storage limits

Logical storage Parameter Limit

Files

Maximum size 2

128 TB

Maximum per volume

Volume size dependent, up to 2 billion

FlexClone volumes

Hierarchical clone depth 12

499

FlexVol volumes

Maximum per node

500

Minimum size

20 MB

Maximum size 3

300 TB

Qtrees

Maximum per FlexVol volume

4,995

Snapshot copies

Maximum per FlexVol volume

1,023

  1. Hierarchical clone depth is the maximum depth of a nested hierarchy of FlexClone volumes that can be created from a single FlexVol volume.

  2. Beginning with ONTAP 9.12.1P2, the limit is 128 TB. In ONTAP 9.11.1 and earlier versions, the limit is 16 TB.

  3. FlexVol volume creation up to the maximum size of 300 TiB is supported using System Manager starting from Cloud Volumes ONTAP 9.12.1 P2.

iSCSI storage limits

iSCSI storage Parameter Limit

LUNs

Maximum per node

1,024

Maximum number of LUN maps

1,024

Maximum size

16 TB

Maximum per volume

512

igroups

Maximum per node

256

Initiators

Maximum per node

512

Maximum per igroup

128

iSCSI sessions

Maximum per node

1,024

LIFs

Maximum per port

1

Maximum per portset

32

Portsets

Maximum per node

256