Skip to main content
NetApp Technical Reports

Hardware details

Contributors whyistheinternetbroken elliott-ecton
PDFs

The following section covers details about the NetApp AFX cluster hardware. For the most recent information about NetApp AFX hardware, see https://hwu.netapp.com.

Supported hardware

For the latest information on supported hardware for NetApp AFX, check https://hwu.netapp.com.

Nodes

NetApp AFX nodes are based on the AFF A1K model of nodes provided for unified ONTAP clusters. These nodes have no on-board disk for storage and are intended to be modular to easily add and remove nodes based on performance requirements. Each node uses 2U of rack space and increases performance linearly as they are added to an AFX cluster.

NetApp AFX 1K node details

Image

Hardware slots

NetApp AFX 1K nodes use the following slot assignments.

  • Slot 1 is dedicated to HA replication

  • Slot 7 is dedicated to cluster replication

  • Slots 10 and 11 are dedicated to storage shelf communication

Shelves

NetApp AFX shelves use the same enclosures that the AFF systems leverage. The main difference in shelves in AFX is in the module used. The NSM140 modules provide enhanced performance capabilities and help make disaggregated ONTAP possible. A few key considerations:

  • Only fully populated shelves supported.

  • Shelves are automatically detected by NetApp AFX when plugged in.

  • No shelf removal support currently.

NetApp AFX shelf enclosure details

Image

Switches

NetApp AFX still makes use of backend cluster switches for intracluster communication, such as cluster database replication, remote data operations, storage operations, and NVRAM mirroring. Functionally, the only differences between unified ONTAP and NetApp AFX cluster switches are:

NetApp AFX cluster switches

Image

Cluster switch connectivity

NetApp AFX heavily leverages backend cluster switches for many of its major architectural concepts. For instance, cluster interfaces, storage adapters, storage shelves, and NVRAM cards all plug into the cluster switches. Currently, all of these interfaces support 100GB communication only, while the switches support 400GB. As a result, the 100GB interfaces plug into the 400GB interfaces on the switch by way of 4 x 100GB breakout cables. This approach reduces the number of ports used on the switches. For instance, 16 x 100GB storage shelf module ports will use just 4 ports on the switches, while the 8 total ports on the nodes use 2 switch ports.

NetApp AFX switch cabling

Image

Disk types and sizes

NetApp AFX currently only supports NVMe attached SSDs in the following sizes:

  • 7.6TB

  • 15.3TB

  • 30.1TB

  • 60.6TB

TLC vs. QLC

NetApp AFX can leverage both TLC and QLC flash types. The 7.6 and 15.3TB drives are TLC models, while drives larger than 30.1TB will be QLC. Regardless of media type, the NVIDIA SuperPod certification performance standards can be met.

All drives used with NetApp AFX are performance-rated drives, and both QLC and TLC will perform nearly identically for read traffic. QLC lags a bit behind write performance as compared to TLC and can experience slightly more wear-leveling with write-heavy workloads.

For performance numbers, see Per-shelf performance.

When choosing the drive type in use, consider what workloads the storage will be hosting and the performance/capacity density tradeoffs involved.