5/23    I was talking to my IT guys as to why our company partitions Netapp
        disks into small (approx 750GB) partitions and they said that Netapps
        limit single continuous volumes to that size and that the 16TB limit
        shown on their webpage is just a filer size limit. Is this true?
        I thought Netapps let you stripe data across multiple racks.
        \_ our storage admins tend to make 750g partitions on the netapps,
           however they do ahve some that are multiples of that.  I think the
           750g magic number is a raid set built out of a full shelf's worth
           of disks.    However we're in the process of ditching Netapp to go
           for EMC.   Large storage volumes are in general best avoided if
           possible.  They make for big backup & restore headaches.
           \_ 750 is small? I thought you could get disks at Fry's in the
           \_ 750 is big? I thought you could get disks at Fry's in the
              400 range. RAID a bunch of those together and you've exceeded
              750GB easily.
              \_ This is enterprise storage, not a warez site at some kid's
                 mom's house.  And that's for one volume, anyway, not the
                 entire unit which is going to be anywhere from a few TB to
                 hundreds of TB or even PB.
                 \_ It's hard to convince the average user of this. They
                    say: "For $500 I can get 1 TB at Fry's. Why do we
                    (as an enterprise) only have a N TB limit?"
                    \_ the average user is a moron, but I didn't have to tell
                       you that.
                    \_ I tried to explain enterprise vs. Fry's to my wife's
                       co-worker and failed miserably.  Of course his 4 disk
                       1 TB stripe crapped out a year later and he lost
                       everything but boy it was so cool for that first year.
                       \_ I never said we shouldn't use enterprise class
                          disks. We use Netapps and I think we should still
                          keep using them. But from what my friends at Netapp
                          tell me, they sell systems with individual disks
                          that are 400+GB so it would make sense that a single
                          stripe could easily exceed 720GB.
                          \_ Of course it can.  That doesn't mean you should
                             make unmirrored stripes.  You can stick a knife
                             in your foot but I wouldn't suggest you do that
                             either.  What your Netapp friends aren't telling
                             you is they consider single disk sales a sucker
                             buy and easy cash from the low end crowd.
           \_ Has anyone looked at 3par?  Curious.
           \_ A full shelf of disks is more than 750 GB, unless you're
              still using 72 GB disks. Netapp recommends no more than
              about 42 disks in an aggregate, which is a lot more than 750 GB.
              I am guessing that these are not technical limits but
              political ones or that there may be other reasons (e.g.
              backup and restore).
              \_ oh we are. The Netapps are a couple years old now; new storage
                 investment is all going to EMC.
                 \_ Don't do it.  You'll be sorry if you're not a huge bank or
                    something similar.
           \_ EMC?  OMG, I'm sorry for you.