differences between FAS2040 and FAS3210

[dormelchen]

Hello,

what are the differences between these two controllers.

And why should i tell our customer to buy a 3210.

And why should he / we use Ontap 8 ?

Thanks

[roman_verysell]

Most significant benefit in 3210 is an expandability. You can use a 2x PCIe ports, for example for FlashCache, 10G Ethernet, 8G FC ports or additional SAS ports. Also you can use a Metrocluster functionality, and some benefis of new software licensing scheme with 'ONTAP Essential' bundle and other 'all-inclusive' offer.

[radek_kubka]

Hi,

And why should he / we use Ontap 8 ?

To me this is mostly about 64-bit aggregates. Whether you need them or not is a subject to a discussion - see e.g. this thread: http://communities.netapp.com/message/49508#49508.

On that note:

Be wary that certain configuration maximums are different for 2040 vs. 3210 - e.g. max 64-bit aggregate size is 30TB for the former & 50TB for the latter.

Regards,
Radek

[lrhvidsten]

I can give you a couple more, though I'm not sure how many are using data compression yet:

1. VAAI

http://blogs.netapp.com/virtualstorageguy/2010/07/vsphere-41-and-vstorage-apis-for-array-integration-vaai.html

http://blogs.netapp.com/virtualstorageguy/2010/07/vmware-vsphere-vaai-demo-with-netapp.html

2. Data compression:

http://blogs.netapp.com/virtualstorageguy/2010/12/introducing-data-compression-in-ontap-801.html

I'm currently on a FAS2020 platform running 7.3.x, so unfortunately have had no experience with these features.