Two flash caches in one controller, possible?

KHYOON123 — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 23:38:55 GMT

Hi all,

I thought two flashcaches per one controller, this is very powerful for OLTP environmnet.

Is it possible? or it should be one flashcache per one node?

Please answer me 🙂

Re: Two flash caches in one controller, possible?

ekashpureff — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 04:01:36 GMT

Khyoon -

Yes, you can have more than one Flash Cache card per controller.

There are limits to the ammount of total cache depending on controller model.

These are listed on Hardware Universe - https://hwu.netapp.com/

I hope this response has been helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff, Sr.
Independent NetApp Consultant http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff
Senior NetApp Instructor, IT Learning Solutions http://sg.itls.asia/netapp
(P.S. I appreciate 'kudos' on any helpful posts.)

Re: Two flash caches in one controller, possible?

ekashpureff — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 04:28:18 GMT

Kyhoon -

See also the Flash Pool documentation from the Physical Storage Management Guide documentation:

https://library.netapp.com/ecmdocs/ECMP1368404/html/GUID-0A1850C0-1A11-4C92-8703-4F2314822FDC.html

How the available Flash Pool cache capacity is calculated

Knowing the available cache capacity enables you to determine how many data SSDs you can add before reaching the limit, because Flash Pool cache capacity cannot exceed a platform-dependent limit for the system or HA configuration.

The current cache capacity is the sum of the "used size" capacity (as reported by the sysconfig -r command) of all of the data SSDs used in Flash Pool aggregates on the system. Parity SSDs are not included.

For systems in an HA configuration, the cache size limits apply to the HA configuration as a whole, and can be split arbitrarily between the two nodes, provided that the total limit for the HA configuration is not exceeded.

If Flash Cache modules are installed in a system, the available cache capacity for Flash Pool use is the Flash Pool cache capacity limit minus the sum of the Flash Cache module cache installed on the node. (In the unusual case where the size of the Flash Cache modules is not symmetrical between the two nodes in an HA configuration, the available Flash Pool cache capacity is decreased by the size of the larger Flash Cache module.)

For information about cache size limits, see the Hardware Universe.

Example calculation with Flash Cache modules

For an HA configuration composed of two storage controllers with a maximum cache capacity of 12 TB and 2 TB of Flash Cache installed on each node, the maximum Flash Pool aggregate cache capacity for the HA pair would be 12 TB minus 2 TB, or 10 TB.

Example calculation with asymmetrically sized Flash Cache modules

For an HA configuration composed of two storage controllers with a maximum cache capacity of 12 TB and 2 TB of Flash Cache installed on one node and 3 TB of Flash Cache installed on the other node, the maximum Flash Pool aggregate cache capacity for the HA pair would be 12 TB minus 3 TB, or 9 TB.

There's also the Flash Pool Datasheet, which has max cache sizes: http://www.netapp.com/us/media/ds-3345.pdf

I hope this response has been more helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff, Sr.
Independent NetApp Consultant http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff
Senior NetApp Instructor, IT Learning Solutions http://sg.itls.asia/netapp
(P.S. I appreciate 'kudos' on any helpful posts.)

Re: Two flash caches in one controller, possible?

KHYOON123 — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 02:46:12 GMT

Thank you so much.

This is the best answer ever!

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Two flash caches in one controller, possible?

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