Operational Aspects Storage server operational issues can be complex and time consuming to address. The design and features of Network Appliance Filers are focused on minimizing the time and effort involved. The examples below show how typical storage server maintenance issues are resolved on a Filer. In comparison, the many steps required to integrate a storage server from basic components are complex and very time consuming. Protection from disk failures on a Filer is done with RAID 4.
Hot spares are available to automatically replace the failed disk.
All operations are done with all data on-line. Recovery from power outages takes from 2 to 3 minutes for a Filer to boot. The WAFL journalling file system insures file system stability, avoiding the multi-hour fsck operations required with less capable file systems. Dynamic growth of volumes on a Filer is simple. WAFL attributes allow this to happen without reboots and with all existing data on-line, fully accessible.