How to create a new aggregate in NetApp

Here is the steps to create a new aggregate in NetApp. You need to create at least 1 aggregate as you should not use the aggr0 as that’s where the root volume is.

First, go to the Aggregates list. From there, click the Create button.

The dialog box will appear, starting the wizard.

 

Give it a name. Since I’m only going to have 1 aggregate that combines all the volumes, I’ve given it the name below. I think using different aggregate will result in a waste (capacity and IOPS) as 1 physical spindle can not be shared among aggregate. So if Aggregate1 has 200 spindles, and Aggregate2 has 20 spindles, and Aggregate2 cannot cope with the IOPS, it cannot use the spindles in Aggregate1.

 

I only have 1 disk group, which was created earlier.

 

Clicking the Next button give me the screen below. I need to choose the disks, so I will click Select Disks.

 

From here, I chose 20 disks. I’m setting aside 1 disk as spare. It is automatically chosen. I don’t have to specify which one is spare.

 

From the 20 spindles, I chose to create RAID (8+2), so I specified 10. It automatically creates the 2 RAID group.

 

This is the last screen.

 

The process below takes only a few minutes. In fact, I think it’s less than 1 minute as it’s pretty fast!

 

This is the result.

 

And this is the result. Notice it even tells me which physical spindles it uses for parity.

 

And here is the volumes subtab looks like. I’ve created 6 volumes here.

 

Hope that helps.