The Fabric Attached Storage (FAS) Series are the scale out enterprise system family offered by NetApp that can be configured to satisfy both high-end, mid-tier, and entry-level customer needs. With the FlexArray software, the high-end FAS systems can support virtualization of third party external storage
attached. This feature integrates the capabilities of the earlier V-Series line of virtualization controllers. The FAS8000 and FAS9000 systems support scaling of both capacity and performance using clustered scale-out, which allows NetApp to offer highly configuable systems to cover a broad market.
NetApp offers the systems as Unified Storage, which is unified in that they support both file and block access and as of October 2020, object storage with a limited set of S3 operators. The FAS8200, FAS9000, and FAS2700 series of storage systems were announced in September of 2016 and the FAS9500 was
announced in June 2022. The all flash versions of the FAS systems as All Flash FAS (AFF) models were released in 2015 with new versions released periodically and are covered in separate Evaluator Group documents. The FAS8300 and FAS8700 were released in 2019. The FAS500f model released in 2020 is an
all flash FAS system which provides a balance between the higher capacities of the FAS models and the higher performance of the AFF systems. Previously, AFF models distinguished systems with all SSD devices, while FAS models represented hybrid SSD and HDD models. The release of the FAS500f system
signifies a transition to distinguishing FAS models as capacity oriented and AFF models as performance oriented, rather than a device specific distinction.
This document provides an overview and analysis of the major features and functions of the NetApp FAS storage systems including the high-end FAS8000 and FAS9000 systems as well as the mid-range FAS8300, and entry/mid-range FAS2700 family. NetApp systems use the ONTAP operating environment.
This document covers the complete storage OS functionality including data protection and deduplication capabilities.
NetApp FAS Product Analysis Includes:
- Highlights
- Hardware Architecture
- Software Architecture
- Software Features and Functions
- Advanced Features
- Reliability, Availability and Serviceability
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