topic FAS8300, NS212 & NS224 Disk Shelves Installation in ONTAP Hardware

FAS8300, NS212 & NS224 Disk Shelves Installation

Praveen121 — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 09:57:04 GMT

Hi All,

I am installing a new NetApp FAS8300 system equipped with an DS212 shelf (12 x 12TB NL-SAS disks) and DS224 shelf (10 x 3.8TB SSDs). My question is how to connect these two disk shelves to the controller: should they be daisy-chained in a single stack, or do they require separate stacks/loops? If daisy-chaining is supported, which shelf should be positioned first (closest to the controller)? Additionally, I plan to use the DS212 shelf for the root aggregate disks.

Ordered mini-SAS HD SAS optical cables for both shelves.

Your help and inputs will be very valuable.

Thanks and regards.

Praveen.

Re: FAS8300, NS212 & NS224 Disk Shelves Installation

Abeltran — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 10:14:44 GMT

Hi Praveen,

You shouldn't mix on the same stack SSD and NL-SAS, so i recommend two stacks. Take a look to the install guide from netapp site:

https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap-systems/fas8300/install-detailed-guide.html#option-1-cable-the-controllers-to-sas-drive-shelves

https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap-systems/sas3/install-cabling-rules.html

Kind regards,

Albert

Re: FAS8300, NS212 & NS224 Disk Shelves Installation

Praveen121 — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 10:25:17 GMT

Hi Alber,

Thank a lot for replying.

As per this document the only condition is IOM, IOM12 & IOM12B can be added in same stack.
https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap-systems/sas3/install-hot-add-shelf.html#install_disk_shelves_for_a_hot_add

You can hot-add one or more disk shelves with IOM12/IOM12B modules to an existing stack of disk shelves with IOM12/IOM12B modules or hot-add a stack of one or more disk shelves with IOM12/IOM12B modules directly to a SAS HBA or an onboard SAS port on the controller.

So in my case both DS212C and DS224C may comes with IOM12 or IOM12B.

Please help me understand this.

Thanks & Regards,

Praveen.

Re: FAS8300, NS212 & NS224 Disk Shelves Installation

andris — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 22:30:32 GMT

Separating your HDD and SSD shelves in different stack is a performance best practice.

That said, with only 2 shelves at play, placing them in the same stack has not significant performance impact. Each controller will have a direct SAS link to each shelf, if you properly cable the stack as multipath-HA (MP-HA). The docs show this configuration.

That said, since the FAS8300 has 4 onboard SAS ports, why not future-proof your SAS storage for any future expansion? Use 2 ports for the DS212C and the other 2 ports for the DS224C. If you need to add either HDD or SSD shelves, you can just hot-add them to the appropriate stack.

Re: FAS8300, NS212 & NS224 Disk Shelves Installation

Praveen121 — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 04:56:32 GMT

Thank you @andris & @Abeltran for your help.

I will go with your suggestion and will create two separate stacks for HDD and SSD.