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After you add an SSD cache to an aggregate to create a Flash Pool, you cannot remove the SSD cache to convert the aggregate back to its original configuration.
You can change the RAID group size of the SSD cache, but you cannot make this change until after SSDs have been added. Once drives have been added to a RAID group, they cannot be removed. If you know that you want to use a different RAID group size than the default SSD RAID group size, you can add three SSDs at first. Then, after you update the RAID group size, you can add the rest of the SSDs.
By default, the RAID level of the SSD cache is the same as the RAID level of the HDD RAID groups. You can override this default selection by specifying the raidtype option when you add the first SSD RAID groups. Although the SSD cache is providing caching for the HDD tier, the SSD RAID groups are integral to the health of the aggregate as a whole. An SSD RAID group that experiences a failure that exceeds the RAID protection capability of the RAID level in use takes the aggregate offline. For this reason, it is a best practice to keep the RAID level of the SSD cache the same as that of the HDD RAID groups.
There are platform- and workload-specific best practices for Flash Pool SSD cache size and configuration. For information about these best practices, see Technical Report 4070: NetApp Flash Pool Design and Implementation Guide.