Today NetApp made several announcements including the release of a new entry-level system in their AFF series, the NetApp AFF A250. The A250 is set to replace the A220 but sit under the A300. The A250 is said to deliver best-in-class performance and efficiency at an entry price point to mid-size business customers allowing for more consolidation of workloads eliminating silos.
Today NetApp made several announcements including the release of a new entry-level system in their AFF series, the NetApp AFF A250. The A250 is set to replace the A220 but sit under the A300. The A250 is said to deliver best-in-class performance and efficiency at an entry price point to mid-size business customers allowing for more consolidation of workloads eliminating silos.
NetApp has been releasing all-flash arrays for a few years now, several of which we have tested and few took home our top prize of editor’s choice award. As the company tends to do, NetApp replaces older units for those that better match the changing nature of the IT landscape. This is the case with the NetApp AFF A250. While priced the same as its predecessor the new array is able to provide 40% more performance and 33% more efficiency.
In order to hit better performance, the NetApp AFF A250 leverages a CPU with 24 cores and 128GB of memory per HA Pair. Internal storage can be up to 24 NVMe SSDs, though users can order it configured with 8, 12, or 24. The SSDs go up to 15.3TB each or users can use 24 external 30.2TB SSDs. The array supports end-to-end NVMe over NVMe/FC and leverages the company’s NS224 storage shelf architecture. Per controller, the A250 leverage two 25Gb Ethernet for HA and cluster interconnects, two 10GBASE-T for host connectivity, and two mezzanine slots for I/O expansion. The A250 can support SAS drives as well as up to 30.6TB each. The newly announced ONTAP 9.8 is needed on this array.
NetApp AFF A250 Key Specifications
| Maximum scale-out | 2–24 nodes (12 HA pairs) |
| Maximum SSDs | 576 |
| Maximum effective capacity | 35PB |
| Controller form factor | 2U |
| PCIe expansion slots | 4 |
| FC target ports (32Gb autoranging) | Up to 24 |
| 100GbE ports (40GbE autoranging) | 4 |
| 25GbE ports (10GbE autoranging) | Up to 28 |
| 10Gbase-T (1GbE autoranging) | |
| 12Gb/6Gb SAS ports | 4 |
| Storage networking supported | NVMe/FC, FC, iSCSI, NFS, pNFS, CIFS/SMB, Amazon S3 |
| OS version | ONTAP 9.8 RC1 or later |
| Shelves and media | NS224 (2U; 24 drives, 2.5” SFF NVMe); DS224C (2U; 24 drives, 2.5” SFF); DS2246 (2U; 24 drives, 2.5” SFF) |
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