topic Vfiler Allocation in ONTAP Discussions

Vfiler Allocation

RGASCOIGNE — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:46:13 GMT

Just got a quick question for anyone out there on vfilers. Is there a physical limit on the vfilers allocation?

Vfiler Allocation

jakob_bena — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:08:20 GMT

hi there,

i found this on the web site of netapp.

There are a few practical considerations for MultiStore users. For NetApp storage systems with 2GB of memory or more (most current models), MultiStore can support up to 65 vFiler units per storage system.

regards

jakob

Vfiler Allocation

RGASCOIGNE — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:12:14 GMT

Thanks Jakob - I'll look at my memory capacity

Re: Vfiler Allocation

scottgelb — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:58:06 GMT

All new systems 2GB+ are 65 vFilers. But the physical controller, vfiler0, is one of those vFilers. So you can create 64 additional vFilers on top of the physical system. In a cluster it is 64 per node so on failover you can have 128 (plus 2 physical vfiler0...130 total).

Also note that the vfiler limit default is 11 (physical vfiler0 plus 10 more). To increase the vfiler limit you need to reboot (or cluster takeover/giveback) since the increase doesn't dynamically allocate memory. So if you know you'll need more than the default 11, schedule the maintenance window. "vfiler limit nn" then the reboot or takeover/giveback. Each vFiler takes about ~400k of system memory.