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Supported and unsupported configurations for FlexGroup volumes

Contributors netapp-lenida netapp-dbagwell netapp-aaron-holt netapp-aherbin johnlantz netapp-mwallis
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You should be aware of the ONTAP features that are supported and not supported with FlexGroup volumes in ONTAP 9.

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.16.1

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.15.1

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.14.1

  • Snapshot copy tagging: Support for creating, modifying and deleting Snapshot copy tags (SnapMirror labels and comments) for Snapshot copies on FlexGroup volumes using the volume snapshot command.

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.13.1

  • Autonomous Ransomware Protection (ARP) for FlexGroup volumes, including the following supported functionality:

    • FlexGroup expand operations: A new member volume inherits Autonomous Ransomware Protection attributes.

    • FlexVol to FlexGroup conversions: Conversions of FlexVols with active Autonomous Ransomware Protection is possible.

    • FlexGroup rebalancing: Autonomous Ransomware Protection is supported during disruptive and non-disruptive rebalancing operations.

  • Schedule a single FlexGroup rebalancing operation.

  • SnapMirror fanout relationships with SVM DR on FlexGroup volumes. Supports fanout to eight sites.

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.12.1

  • FlexGroup rebalancing

  • SnapLock for SnapVault

  • FabricPool, FlexGroup, and SVM DR working in conjunction. (In releases earlier than ONTAP 9.12.1, any two of these features worked together, but not all three in conjunction.)

  • Large volume support increases FlexGroup volume member size from a maximum of 100TB to a maximum of 300TB.

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.11.1

  • SnapLock volumes

    SnapLock does not support the following features with FlexGroup volumes:

    • Legal-hold

    • Event-based retention

    • SnapLock for SnapVault

You configure SnapLock at the FlexGroup level. You cannot configure SnapLock at the member volume level.

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.10.1

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.9.1

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.8

  • Restoring a single file from a FlexGroup SnapMirror vault or from a UDP destination

    • Restore can be from a FlexGroup volume of any geometry to FlexGroup volume of any geometry

    • Only one file per restore operation is supported

  • Converting volumes transitioned from 7-Mode systems to FlexGroup volumes

    For more information, see Knowledge Base article How To Convert a Transitioned FlexVol to FlexGroup.

  • NFSv4.2

  • Asynchronous delete of files and directories

  • Files System Analytics (FSA)

  • FlexGroup as a VMware vSphere datastore

  • Additional support for tape backup and restore using NDMP, including the following features:

    • NDMP restartable backup extension (RBE) and Snapshot Management Extension (SSME)

    • Environment variables EXCLUDE and MULTI_SUBTREE_NAMES support FlexGroup backups

    • Introduction of IGNORE_CTIME_MTIME environment variable for FlexGroup backups

    • Individual file recovery in a FlexGroup using the NDMP_SNAP_RECOVER message, which is part of extension 0x2050 Dump and restore sessions are aborted during an upgrade or revert.

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.7

  • FlexClone volume

  • NFSv4 and NFSv4.1

  • pNFS

  • Tape backup and restore by using NDMP

    You must be aware of the following points for NDMP support on FlexGroup volumes:

    • The NDMP_SNAP_RECOVER message in the extension class 0x2050 can be used only for recovering an entire FlexGroup volume.

      Individual files in a FlexGroup volume cannot be recovered.

    • NDMP restartable backup extension (RBE) is not supported for FlexGroup volumes.

    • Environment variables EXCLUDE and MULTI_SUBTREE_NAMES are not supported for FlexGroup volumes.

    • The ndmpcopy command is supported for data transfer between FlexVol and FlexGroup volumes.

      If you revert from Data ONTAP 9.7 to an earlier version, the incremental transfer information of the previous transfers is not retained and therefore, you must perform a baseline copy after reverting.

  • VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI)

  • Conversion of a FlexVol volume to a FlexGroup volume

  • FlexGroup volumes as FlexCache origin volumes

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.6

  • Continuously available SMB shares

  • MetroCluster configurations

  • Renaming a FlexGroup volume (volume rename command)

  • Shrinking or reducing the size of a FlexGroup volume (volume size command)

  • Elastic sizing

  • NetApp aggregate encryption (NAE)

  • Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.5

  • ODX copy offload

  • Storage-Level Access Guard

  • Enhancements to change notifications for SMB shares

    Change notifications are sent for changes to the parent directory on which the changenotify property is set and for changes to all of the subdirectories in that parent directory.

  • FabricPool

  • Quota enforcement

  • Qtree statistics

  • Adaptive QoS for files in FlexGroup volumes

  • FlexCache (cache only; FlexGroup as origin supported in ONTAP 9.7)

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.4

  • FPolicy

  • File auditing

  • Throughput floor (QoS Min) and adaptive QoS for FlexGroup volumes

  • Throughput ceiling (QoS Max) and throughput floor (QoS Min) for files in FlexGroup volumes

    You use the volume file modify command to manage the QoS policy group that is associated with a file.

  • Relaxed SnapMirror limits

  • SMB 3.x multichannel

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.3

  • Antivirus configuration

  • Change notifications for SMB shares

    Notifications are sent only for changes to the parent directory on which the changenotify property is set. Change notifications are not sent for changes to subdirectories in the parent directory.

  • Qtrees

  • Throughput ceiling (QoS Max)

  • Expand the source FlexGroup volume and destination FlexGroup volume in a SnapMirror relationship

  • SnapVault backup and restore

  • Unified data protection relationships

  • Autogrow option and autoshrink option

  • Inode count factored to ingest

Feature supported beginning with ONTAP 9.2

Features supported beginning with ONTAP 9.1

FlexGroup volumes were introduced in ONTAP 9.1, with support for several ONTAP features.

  • SnapMirror technology

  • Snapshot copies

  • Digital Advisor

  • Inline adaptive compression

  • Inline deduplication

  • Inline data compaction

  • AFF

  • Quota reporting

  • NetApp Snapshot technology

  • SnapRestore software (FlexGroup level)

  • Hybrid aggregates

  • Constituent or member volume move

  • Postprocess deduplication

  • NetApp RAID-TEC technology

  • Per-aggregate consistency point

  • Sharing FlexGroup with FlexVol volume in the same SVM

Unsupported FlexGroup volume configurations in ONTAP 9

Unsupported protocols

Unsupported data protection features

Other unsupported ONTAP features