Did you know that if you buy four half-width storage nodes in one 2U NetApp HCI chassis without server nodes, they will act as ordinary SolidFire storage?
All new SolidFire storage nodes are part of NetApp HCI architecture, but it doesn’t mean you can’t use them just as SolidFire storage without building an actual HCI. Yea, you can do that, even though naming might confuse you a bit.
SolidFire form factor comparison:
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 |
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|---|---|---|
| Individual 1U storage nodes | Storage nodes in 2U HCI chassis | |
| Minimum nodes for a cluster | 4 nodes | 4 nodes |
| Rack units minimum | 4U | 2U |
| Each node | 1U | Half-width 1U |
| Drives | 12 SSD in each node, 48 minimum for 4 nodes | 6 SSD in each node, 24 minimum for 4 nodes |
| Drive size | 960GB / 1.92GB / 3.84TB | 480GB / 960GB / 1.92TB |
| IOPS per node | 100.000 | 50.000 / 100.000 |
| Space with 4 node cluster | 11.52TB (960) / 23.04TB (1.92) / 46.08TB (3.84) | 2.88TB (460) / 5.76TB (960) / 11.52TB (1.92) |
Summary
Both form factors are fully compatible and can be mixed together. 2U HCI chassis allows you to use it for customers who need a smaller amount of initial space and grow as needed with either 1U nodes or 1U half-width nodes. Both 1U and 1U half-width storage nodes can be used as storage-only, no compute nodes required.
