NetApp Disk Shelf - IBM N-Series Controller

[JoeSpenceley]

Hello All,

We are the lucky owners of an IBM N-Series N6210 OEM Branded Netapp 3210.  As of last year IBM removed the N-Series from their product portfolio and then sold the lot to Lenovo.  This is making it very difficult for us to source new IBM branded/firewared disk shelves and disks.

I am now looking into the possibility of purchasing a new NetApp shelf (Complete with 24x 600Gb SAS disk) for some much needed expansion of our storage.  Would be great to hear if anyone else has found that a NetApp shelf will play well with IBM N-Series controllers and if so, what were the impacts to vendor support?

Cheers,

Joe

[MYNETAPP_]

Joe what did you do in the end?

[Darkstar]

I haven't tried it on anything recent myself, but at least the slightly older IBM-branded FAS270 filers did work with regular NetApp shelves without any problems, I am pretty confident this still holds true for the newer systems. Anything else would be strange, since the shelf hardware and the operating system is identical (except for the copyright string).

You probably won't have support from IBM (or Lenovo?) for these shelves but I'm sure you're aware of that

[DAWSONSCALAR]

Should absolutely work. I did the opposite with a SAS N-Series shelf a few weeks ago - plugged it into a geniune NetApp, no problems.

[Gadducci]

Hi guys,

I need to renew support (IBM Storage OEM Netapp) with Netapp, but can not find the serial of Netapp in sysconfig, only the serial IBM, any tips for this situation?

many thanks

Gadducci

[MYNETAPP_]

we inserted a NetApp disk into an N-Series shelf, without any issues. It seems that the limitation only applies to the version of ontap, nvram, but nothing else

your not going to find a netapp serial number, but this link provides comparisions. (http://www.maximummidrange.com/blog/ibm-n-series-netapp-comparison-matrix/2687)

Good luck 

[DAWSONSCALAR]

NetApp will not sell a support contract for IBM N-Series hardware, sorry. However, third parties like Parkplace do. 

There is also a consideration for doing a headswap of NetApp controller onto N-Series disks and putting that under support.