There's technical and philosophical arguments for not using e0M for anything but management roles.   Technically, e0M has been a lower-speed port (100Mb/s, 1Gb/s) in various platforms, sharing a link with remote management (the service processor). It also is restricted to a 1500 byte MTU limit.   Philosophically, management traffic (i.e. the control plane) should remain as isolated as possible from the data traffic.  ... View more

@River wrote: Hi All : I am installing FAS9000 now, and I can not find out any KB about NVME modules. Do I need to setup the options like old PAM did?  ex: options flexscale.xxxx    Andris: Even though we evolved from PCIe cards to NVMe modules in the latest platforms, it's still Flash Cache. So, it's the same commands to configure and monitor. Configuration is mostly "enable and forget".  You would use the "system controller flash-cache" commands for physical aspects and "system node external-cache" commands for the actual cache behavior configuration. The corner-case tweaking might still use the nodeshell flexscale.* options.   And how can I predict the module's life?  For SSD is shelf, I can use storage show disk in node shell.   Andris: if you look at "system controller flash-cache show -instance", the percent-online field tells you how much of the Flash memory is operational. Also, when the module is almost at its end-of-life, the system will issue EMS events and AutoSupport messages.  That said, Flash Cache modules don't really wear out before the lifetime of the platform.   And if the NVME module failed, will it cause performance issue?   Andris: Generally, yes. You'll get EMS events, alerts and AutoSupport messages sent if a Flash Cache module fails.   And what's Quad-path  used for? Only more safety?  Should I cable as Quad-path  right now?   Andris: I answered this in your other thread.  http://community.netapp.com/t5/FAS-and-V-Series-Storage-Systems-Discussions/What-s-Quad-path-used-for/m-p/127612#U127612 There's not too much information I can found on NOW site...   And I had AFF700 need to install about a month later = =.       ... View more

Sure... If you don't want to peruse performance graphs/counters (e.g. via OnCommand Performance Manager) to check the storage utilization percentage or worry about specific workloads, going with Quad-Path cabling for AFF storage is a great rule of thumb.  There's just the minor extra costs of using extra HBA ports and cables. ... View more

I can confirm that other than the FAS8000, the management (wrench) port is limited to autonegotiating 10/100 Mb/s connections only. FAS8000's wrench port is "upgraded" to 10/100/1000 Mb/s. If your main switch infrastructure can no longer provide 100Mb/s full-duplex, then your idea is OK. Two considerations: 1. If you plug a number of wrench ports into your "feeder" switch, make sure your upstream Nexus allows multiple MAC addresses on the port 2. Make sure this switch autonegotiates properly with the wrench port. The wrench port does not have any manual Ethernet configuration options - autonegotiation is required. ... View more