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Storage limits in AWS

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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. In those cases, you can reach the capacity limit by tiering inactive data to object storage. Refer to capacity and disk limits below for more details.

License Maximum system capacity (disks + object storage)

Freemium

500 GiB

PAYGO Explore

2 TiB (data tiering is not supported with Explore)

PAYGO Standard

10 TiB

PAYGO Premium

368 TiB

Node-based license

2 PiB (requires multiple licenses)

Capacity-based license

2 PiB
For HA, is the license 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 TiB of capacity between both nodes.

For an HA system in AWS, does mirrored data count against the capacity limit?

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

Aggregate limits

Cloud Volumes ONTAP uses EBS volumes as disks and groups them into aggregates. Aggregates provide storage to volumes.

Parameter Limit

Maximum number of aggregates

Single node: Same as the disk limit
HA pairs: 18 in a node 1

Maximum aggregate size 2

  • 96 TiB of raw capacity

  • 128 TiB of raw capacity with Elastic Volumes 3

Disks per aggregate 4

  • 1-6

  • 1-8 with Elastic Volumes 3

Maximum number of RAID groups per aggregate

1

Notes:

  1. It's not possible to create 18 aggregates on both nodes in an HA pair because doing so would exceed the data disk limit.

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

  3. If you have a configuration that supports the Amazon EBS Elastic Volumes feature, then an aggregate can contain up to 8 disks, which provides up to 128 TiB of capacity. The Amazon EBS Elastic Volumes feature is enabled by default on new Cloud Volumes ONTAP 9.11.0 or later systems when using gp3 or io1 disks. Learn more about support for Elastic Volumes

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

Disk and tiering limits by EC2 instance

Capacity limits are different depending on the EC2 instance type family that you use and whether you're using a single node system or an HA pair.

The following notes provide details about the numbers that you’ll see in the tables below:

  • The disk limits are specific to disks that contain user data.

    The limits do not include the boot disk and root disk.

  • A maximum system capacity is listed when using disks alone and when using disks and cold data tiering to object storage.

  • Cloud Volumes ONTAP uses EBS volumes as disks, with a maximum disk size of 16 TiB.

Limits for capacity-based licensing

The following disk limits apply to Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems that use a capacity-based licensing package. Learn about Cloud Volumes ONTAP licensing options

Single node

Instance Max disks per node Max system capacity with disks alone Max system capacity with disks and data tiering

c5, m5, and r5 instances

21

336 TiB

2 PiB

  • m5dn.24xlarge

  • m6id.32xlarge

19 1

304 TiB

2 PiB

  1. This instance type has more local NVMe disks than other instance types, which means a smaller number of data disks are supported.

HA pairs

Instance Max disks per node Max system capacity with disks alone Max system capacity with disks and data tiering

c5, m5, and r5 instances

18

288 TiB

2 PiB

  • m5dn.24xlarge

  • m6id.32xlarge

16 1

256 TiB

2 PiB

  1. This instance type has more local NVMe disks than other instance types, which means a smaller number of data disks are supported.

Limits for node-based licensing

The following disk limits apply to Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems that use node-based licensing, which is the previous generation licensing model that enabled you to license Cloud Volumes ONTAP by node. Node-based licensing is still available for existing customers.

You can purchase multiple node-based licenses for a Cloud Volumes ONTAP BYOL single node or HA pair system to allocate more than 368 TiB of capacity, up to the maximum tested and supported system capacity limit of 2 PiB. Be aware that disk limits can prevent you from reaching the capacity limit by using disks alone. You can go beyond the disk limit by tiering inactive data to object storage. Learn how to add additional system licenses to Cloud Volumes ONTAP. Though Cloud Volumes ONTAP supports up to the maximum tested and supported system capacity of 2 PiB, crossing the 2 PiB limit results in an unsupported system configuration.

AWS Secret Cloud and Top Secret Cloud regions support purchases of multiple node-based licenses starting with Cloud Volumes ONTAP 9.12.1.

Single node with PAYGO Premium

Instance Max disks per node Max system capacity with disks alone Max system capacity with disks and data tiering

c5, m5, and r5 instances

21 1

336 TiB

368 TiB

  • m5dn.24xlarge

  • m6id.32xlarge

19 2

304 TiB

368 TiB

  1. 21 data disks is the limit for new deployments of Cloud Volumes ONTAP. If you upgrade a system that was created with version 9.7 or earlier, then the system continues to support 22 disks. One less data disk is supported on new systems that use these instance types because of the addition of a core disk starting with the 9.8 release.

  2. This instance type has more local NVMe disks than other instance types, which means a smaller number of data disks are supported.

Single node with BYOL

Instance Max disks per node Max system capacity with one license Max system capacity with multiple licenses

Disks alone

Disks + data tiering

Disks alone

Disks + data tiering

c5, m5, and r5 instances

21 1

336 TiB

368 TiB

336 TiB

2 PiB

  • m5dn.24xlarge

  • m6id.32xlarge

19 2

304 TiB

368 TiB

304 TiB

2 PiB

  1. 21 data disks is the limit for new deployments of Cloud Volumes ONTAP. If you upgrade a system that was created with version 9.7 or earlier, then the system continues to support 22 disks. One less data disk is supported on new systems that use these instance types because of the addition of a core disk starting with the 9.8 release.

  2. This instance type has more local NVMe disks than other instance types, which means a smaller number of data disks are supported.

HA pairs with PAYGO Premium

Instance Max disks per node Max system capacity with disks alone Max system capacity with disks and data tiering

c5, m5, and r5 instances

18 1

288 TiB

368 TiB

  • m5dn.24xlarge

  • m6id.32xlarge

16 2

256 TiB

368 TiB

  1. 18 data disks is the limit for new deployments of Cloud Volumes ONTAP. If you upgrade a system that was created with version 9.7 or earlier, then the system continues to support 19 disks. One less data disk is supported on new systems that use these instance types because of the addition of a core disk starting with the 9.8 release.

  2. This instance type has more local NVMe disks than other instance types, which means a smaller number of data disks are supported.

HA pairs with BYOL

Instance Max disks per node Max system capacity with one license Max system capacity with multiple licenses

Disks alone

Disks + data tiering

Disks alone

Disks + data tiering

c5, m5, and r5 instances

18 1

288 TiB

368 TiB

288 TiB

2 PiB

  • m5dn.24xlarge

  • m6id.32xlarge

16 2

256 TiB

368 TiB

256 TiB

2 PiB

  1. 18 data disks is the limit for new deployments of Cloud Volumes ONTAP. If you upgrade a system that was created with version 9.7 or earlier, then the system continues to support 19 disks. One less data disk is supported on new systems that use these instance types because of the addition of a core disk starting with the 9.8 release.

  2. This instance type has more local NVMe disks than other instance types, which means a smaller number of data disks are supported.

Storage VM limits

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

Learn how to create additional storage VMs.

License type Storage VM limit

Freemium

24 storage VMs total 1,2

Capacity-based PAYGO or BYOL 3

24 storage VMs total 1,2

Node-based PAYGO

  • 1 storage VM for serving data

  • 1 storage VM for disaster recovery

Node-based BYOL 4

  • 24 storage VMs total 1,2

  1. The limit can be lower, depending on the EC2 instance type that you use. The limits per instance are listed in the section below.

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

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

Storage VM limit by EC2 instance type

When you create an additional storage VM, you need to allocate private IP addresses to port e0a. The table below identifies the maximum number of private IPs per interface, as well as the number of IP addresses that are available on port e0a after Cloud Volumes ONTAP has been deployed. The number of available IP addresses directly affects the maximum number of storage VMs for that configuration.

The instances listed below are for the c5, m5, and r5 instance families.

Configuration Instance type Max private IPs per interface IPs remaining after deployment 1 Max storage VMs without a mgmt LIF 2,3 Max storage VMs with a mgmt LIF 2,3

Single node

*.xlarge

15

9

10

5

*.2xlarge

15

9

10

5

*.4xlarge

30

24

24

12

*.8xlarge

30

24

24

12

*.9xlarge

30

24

24

12

*.12xlarge

30

24

24

12

*.16xlarge

50

44

24

12

*.18xlarge

50

44

24

12

*.24xlarge

50

44

24

12

HA pair in single AZ

*.xlarge

15

10

11

5

*.2xlarge

15

10

11

5

*.4xlarge

30

25

24

12

*.8xlarge

30

25

24

12

*.9xlarge

30

25

24

12

*.12xlarge

30

25

24

12

*.16xlarge

50

45

24

12

*.18xlarge

50

45

24

12

*.24xlarge

50

44

24

12

HA pair in multi AZs

*.xlarge

15

12

13

13

*.2xlarge

15

12

13

13

*.4xlarge

30

27

24

24

*.8xlarge

30

27

24

24

*.9xlarge

30

27

24

24

*.12xlarge

30

27

24

24

*.16xlarge

50

47

24

24

*.18xlarge

50

47

24

24

*.24xlarge

50

44

24

12

  1. This number indicates how many remaining private IP addresses are available on port e0a after Cloud Volumes ONTAP is deployed and set up. For example, a *.2xlarge system supports a maximum of 15 IP addresses per network interface. When an HA pair is deployed in a single AZ, 5 private IP addresses are allocated to port e0a. As a result, an HA pair that uses a *.2xlarge instance type has 10 private IP addresses remaining for additional storage VMs.

  2. The number listed in these columns includes the initial storage VM that BlueXP creates by default. For example, if 24 is listed in this column, it means that you can create 23 additional storage VMs for a total of 24.

  3. A management LIF for the storage VM is optional. A management LIF provides a connection to management tools like SnapCenter.

    Because it requires a private IP address, it will limit the number of additional storage VMs that you can create. The only exception is an HA pair in multiple AZs. In that case, the IP address for the management LIF is a floating IP address so it doesn't count against the private IP limit.

File and volume 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 1

499

FlexVol volumes

Maximum per node

500

Minimum size

20 MB

Maximum size 3

300 TiB

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 maximum size of 300 TiB is supported using the following tools and minimum versions:

    • System Manager and the ONTAP CLI starting from Cloud Volumes ONTAP 9.12.1 P2 and 9.13.0 P2

    • BlueXP starting from Cloud Volumes ONTAP 9.13.1

iSCSI storage limits

iSCSI storage Parameter Limit

LUNs

Maximum per node

1,024

Maximum number of LUN maps

1,024

Maximum size

16 TiB

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

32

Maximum per portset

32

Portsets

Maximum per node

256