topic Slot expansion question in ONTAP Discussions

Slot expansion question

joostvandrenth — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:17:50 GMT

Silly question, I have a FAS3020 with 3 dual port ethernet cards. Now we want to put in a quad port ethernet card, so one 2 port card has to go.

The config manual says I can have 3 -2 ports and 2 -3 ports, now the question becomes can I have 2 - 2 ports and 1 - 3 ports in the system?

Re: Slot expansion question

stratify_tc — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:44:40 GMT

You can mix the cards, the limits are per each card model.

Based on the information (or lack of) I will make the following assumptions.

FAS3020 (not a cluster, other wise you would have said that)

Data On Tap 7.3.2 (Current GA code)

Dual Port Ethernet Cards (X1037B or X1037C)

Quad Port Ethernet Cards (X1047 or X1047B)

My recommendation is the following configuration for a non-clustered system:

Card Slot 1: NVRAM5

Card Slot 2: Dual Port Ethernet Cards (X1037B or X1037C)

Card Slot 3: Quad Port Ethernet Cards (X1047 or X1047B)

Card Slot 4: Dual Port Ethernet Cards (X1037B or X1037C)

My recommendation is the following configuration for a clustered system:

Card Slot 1: Quad Port Ethernet Cards (X1047 or X1047B)

Card Slot 2: Dual Port Ethernet Cards (X1037B or X1037C)

Card Slot 3: NVRAM5

Card Slot 4: Dual Port Ethernet Cards (X1037B or X1037C)

The logic is thus... Card slots 1 and 2 are on one bus, and card slots 3 and 4 are on another. The NVRAM is the first card that goes in. The next, highest IO card goes in the first slot on the opposite bus. Notice that in each of the above configurations the quad port Ethernet adapter and the NVRAM are always on opposite bus's.

I hope that this helps.

Directly to your question about the number of cards per system, this is more evident in larger systems like that FAS60X0. You cannot use more than the allocated number of slot in the system. In the case of the FAS3020, all cards are PCI-X based (including the NVRAM5), and there are 4 available slots per system.

Below is the full assignment list for the FAS3020 running Data OnTap 7.3.2 in a Single Configuration (Disk and Tape omitted).

Expansion adapter	PN	Maximum number of adapters	Expansion slot¹
			1	2	3	4
			Bus B		Bus D
Network adapters
Dual-port copper iSCSI	X1029B-R5	3		X3	X1	X2
Dual-port optical iSCSI	X1036B-R5
Dual GbE with fiber	X1035B-R5
Dual GbE with copper	X1037B-R5
	X1037C-R6
Quad-port copper GbE TOE	X1007A-R5⁶	2
Single-port optical 10GbE TOE	X1005A-R5⁶
Dual port 4/2/1 Gb FCP target-mode interface	X1028B-R6³
Quad-port GbE with copper³	X1047-R5
	X1047B-R6
2/1 Gb SnapMirror over Fibre Channel interface	X1024-R5	2			X1	X2
IPSec Accelerator	X1017A-R5^{3, 4}	1
Other adapters
VI-MetroCluster⁴	X1922A	1		X1
NVRAM5⁴	X3145A	1	X1

When looking at network adapters, you will see that the "Maximum Number of Adapters" will span multiple part numbers. In this case no combination of those part numbers can exceed the max number of cards for that particular type. The fact that you are crossing over in to two different types means that you now may have only a max in the particular category.

Cluster configuration here:

Expansion adapter	PN	Maximum number of adapters	Expansion slot¹
			1	2	3	4
			Bus B		Bus D
Network adapters
Dual-port copper iSCSI	X1029B-R5	3	X1	X2		X3
Dual-port optical iSCSI	X1036B-R5
Dual GbE with fiber	X1035B-R5
Dual GbE with copper	X1037B-R5
Dual GbE with copper	X1037C-R6
Quad-port copper GbE TOE	X1007A-R5⁵	2
Single-port optical 10GbE TOE	X1005A-R5⁵
Dual port 4/2/1 Gb FCP target-mode interface	X1028B-R6³
Quad-port GbE with copper³	X1047-R5
Quad-port GbE with copper³	X1047B-R6
2/1 Gb SnapMirror over Fibre Channel interface	X1024-R5	2	X1			X2
IPSec Accelerator	X1017A-R5^{3, 4}	1	X1	X2
Other adapters
NVRAM5⁴	X3145A	1			X1

I hope that this helps.

Re: Slot expansion question

joostvandrenth — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:52:16 GMT

Just to clarify a little further, we have indeed a FAS3020A or cluster, but this should not impact the initial question I think.

X1035B 3 cards in the system and 1x X1007A card to add. So one X1035B card will have to go.

This part is central in answering the question and I am a bit unclear on the exact meaning:

"When looking at network adapters, you will see that the "Maximum Number of Adapters" will span multiple part numbers. In this case no combination of those part numbers can exceed the max number of cards for that particular type. The fact that you are crossing over in to two different types means that you now may have only a max in the particular category. "

The logic in your list of preferred slot uses does not correspond with how I read that last part: I can have 3 1035B cards and 2 X1007A cards in the system max - as per the table. I take it to mean that both maximum adapter numbers apply to their respective cards: i.e. If we assume there was no maximum overall limit of 3 network cards, we could have 3 1035B cards and 2 X1007A cards without violating the rules.

Re: Slot expansion question

stratify_tc — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:01:12 GMT

You have hit the nail on the head. If we were to assume that there were no maximum number of slots, you could in fact have 3x X1035B cards and 2x X1007A cards without violating the rules.