Data ONTAP Edge virtualizes storage from the disks that are available to the host server. In a rack system this can be all the disks within the chassis, while in a blade system this could be one or more storage blades in the same blade server.
A brief description of the storage terminology used in the
Data ONTAP Edge storage system environment is provided below:
- physical disk - the disk, or disks, that are available to the host server. The disks are assigned to RAID groups and presented to the host server as LUNs.
- storage pool - a collection of LUNs that hold virtual machine files. The space in the defined pool, or pools, can be used by Data ONTAP Edge for system information or for data storage. From the perspective of a VMware infrastructure, a storage pool is synonymous with a datastore.
- virtual disk - the defined space that Data ONTAP Edge sees as an actual disk. Multiple virtual disks can exist within a storage pool. These disks are formatted and managed by the hypervisor, for example, created as Virtual Machine Disks (VMDKs) when using VMware. The virtual disks are used by Data ONTAP Edge as either system disks or data disks:
- System disks are used internally for the Data ONTAP and virtual machine installation, and for the virtual NVRAM and system files. The system disks are created automatically when Data ONTAP Edge is installed.
- Data disks are the disks that Data ONTAP Edge manages as application storage. Multiple data disks can be created within a storage pool.
See RAID groups and LUN configuration for detailed information about the recommended RAID configuration for your system.