NetApp licensing

[jcbhltz]

Hello,

Forgive me if this is the wrong place to be asking these two questions, but I cannot seem to find a more appropriate place to do so.

Someone within our company purchased 6x DS4243 storage shelves from an auction and I am wondering two things:

1.) As much as I have read, these units are useless without a NetApp controller? That is, you cannot directly connect these units using a HBA to say, a Windows/Linux server?

2.) If there is a need for a controller, will that controller need to be licensed to operate? Does it come with some limited functionality otherwise?

Again, sorry if this is totally the wrong place for this.

Thanks!

[aborzenkov]

In principle, they are just JBODs with SAS expanders. So there are some chances hooking them to SAS HBA works. Of course, you probably lose all nice features like environment monitoring, error recovery etc. People used previous generation FC shelves this way.

Not that I suggest or endorse it of course.

License question is out of scope here; you need to ask your HBA vendor whether any license is needed.

[jcbhltz]

Thanks for the quick reply. 

I'm probably going to avoid directly connecting them and just get a controller, granted it doesnt end up costing thousands of dollars in licensing.