Dell PowerFlex 4.5.x Technical Overview

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Product limits

The following table summarizes PowerFlex supported capabilities and system limits. PowerFlex Manager is not backward compatible.

NOTE:The supported limits described might differ from system enforced limits in the list output of the scli --query_system_limits command.

Table 1. Supported capabilities and system limitsThis table summarizes PowerFlex supported capabilities and system limits.
PowerFlex item	Limit
System raw capacity	Up to 16 PB
Maximum data networks in system	8 NOTE:SDCs can connect through a router and exceed this limit.
Maximum data networks for MDM virtual IPs	4
Device size	Minimum: 240 GB, Maximum: 8 TB (Maximum 15.36 TB for SSDs on medium granularity storage pools)
Minimum number of SDSs in a storage pool	3
Minimum storage pool size	720 GB
Minimum devices (drives) per storage pool	3, one per fault unit
Volume size	Minimum: 8 GB, Maximum: 1 PB
Maximum file system partitions per volume	15
Maximum total number of volumes and snapshots in system	131,072 If more are needed, contact Dell Technologies Support. (up to 10,000 volumes and snapshots when deploying NVMe over TCP)
Maximum total number of volumes and snapshots in protection domain	32,768
Maximum total number of volumes and snapshots per storage pool	32,768
Maximum number of snapshots in a single vTree	126
Maximum raw capacity per protection domain	8 PB
Maximum raw capacity per SDS	160 TB (medium granularity) 128 TB (fine granularity)
Maximum SDCs per system	2048
Maximum SDSs per system	512 If more are needed, contact Dell Technologies Support.
Maximum SDSs per protection domain	128 If more are needed, contact Dell Technologies Support.
Maximum devices (drives) per SDS server NOTE:Includes NVDIMM devices.	64 On a VMware server, the maximum devices per SDS is 59.
Maximum devices per protection domain	8192
Maximum devices per storage pool	300 If more are needed, contact Dell Technologies Support.
Total size of all volumes per storage pool	4 PB
Maximum acceleration devices of type NVDIMM (maximum supported in node)	6 An acceleration pool can serve multiple storage pools, but a single storage pool cannot use multiple acceleration pools. An acceleration device can serve multiple SDS devices, but SDS devices cannot span across multiple acceleration devices.
Maximum volumes that can be mapped to a single SDC	ESXi 7.0, 1024 volumes Other operating systems: 1024
System over provisioning factor	5x net capacity per MG layout
Fine-granularity maximum compression	10x raw capacity
Maximum protection domains per system	256
Maximum storage pools per system	1024
Maximum storage pools per protection domain	64
Maximum fault sets per protection domain	64 If more are needed, contact Dell Technologies Support.
RMcache	Minimum: 128 MB, Maximum: 300 GB
Maximum number of snapshots a snapshot policy can be defined to retain per vTree (not including locked snapshots)	60
Maximum snapshot policies per system	1000
Maximum user accounts	256 If more are needed, contact Dell Technologies Support.
Maximum number of concurrent logged-in management clients (GUI/REST/CLI)	128
Maximum volumes that can be mapped via API (scli \REST\WebUI) concurrently	1024
Maximum number of configured syslog servers	16 (must be an even number) Network configuration for NAS controller must include link aggregation (bonding/teaming) using LACP.
Volumes per local Consistency Group (snapshot)	1024
Maximum number of volumes to SDC mappings per system	262,143
SCSI-3 reservation type	Write exclusive registrants only

Table 2. PowerFlex file services limitsThe table summarizes PowerFlex file services limits.
PowerFlex item	Limit
Maximum NAS cluster size (number of nodes)	16 (must be an even number) Network configuration for NAS controller must include link aggregation (bonding/teaming) using LACP.
Minimum NAS cluster size (number of nodes)	2
Maximum number of NAS clusters per system	1
Maximum file system size	256 TB
Maximum number of file systems	16,384 (1,024*16N)
Maximum number of NAS servers per system	2,048 (128*16N)
Maximum snaps (mounted) per system	46,080
Maximum number of file systems per NAS server	125
Maximum number of file systems plus mounted snaps per NAS server	1,500
Maximum NAS server network interfaces per NAS server	10 + 2 (backup)
Maximum NAS server network interfaces per node	300
Maximum NDMP concurrent sessions per node	20
Maximum NDMP concurrent sessions per cluster	320 (20*16N)
Maximum CIFS servers per system	2,048
Maximum NFS servers per system	2,048
Maximum CIFS shares per node	10,000
Maximum CIFS shares per system	160,000
Maximum NFS exports per node	5,000
Maximum NFS exports per system	80,000
Maximum tree quotas per file system	8,191
Maximum file names per directory	10 million
Maximum sub-directories/files per directory	10 million
Maximum number of home directories	20,000
Maximum CIFS TCP connections	128,000
Maximum NFS TCP connections	128,000
Maximum TCP connections per system	153,600
Maximum unique ACLs per file system	4 million
Maximum CIFS shares + NFS exports per system	160,000 + 80,000
Maximum directories per file system	> 10 billion
Maximum open files/directories	1,024,000
Maximum files per file system	32 billion
Supported NFS versions	v3/v4/v4.1/v4.2
Supported SMB (CIFS) versions	v1/v2/v3/v3.02/v3.1.1
Supported FTP versions	FTP and SFTP

Table 3. NVMe over TCP limitsThis table summarizes PowerFlex NVMe over TCP limits.
PowerFlex item	Limit
Maximum volumes mapped to a single NVMe host (Linux)	1024 ESXi 8.0 and ESXi 7.0u3f or higher
Maximum volumes mapped to a single NVMe host (ESXi)	32 with ESXi 7.0u3f 256 using ESXi 8.0
Maximum NVMe hosts connected to system	1024 NOTE:These hosts are included in the total number of SDCs per system.
Maximum SDTs per protection domain	128
Minimum SDTs per protection domain	2 Using minimum SDTs may block the ability to reach maximum NVMe hosts.
Maximum SDTs per system	512
Maximum paths in multipathing driver per volume	8 4 in ESXi 7.0u3f
Maximum connections per host per protection domain	16
Maximum NVMe host connections (I/O controllers) per SDT	512
Maximum NVMe host connections (I/O controllers) per system	65,519
Maximum I/O controller queue depth	128
Maximum I/O controller queues	32 NOTE:Number of queues + queue depth is automatically negotiated on connection.
Maximum volume-to-host mappings (SDC/NVMe) per system	262,143

Table 4. Replication limitsThis table summarizes PowerFlex replication limits.
PowerFlex item	Limit
Number of destination systems for replication	4
Maximum SDRs per system	128
Maximum number of Replication Consistency Group (RCG)	1024
Maximum replication pairs in RCG with initial copy	1024
Maximum number of volume pairs per RCG	1024
Maximum volume pairs per system	32,000
Maximum number of remote protection domains	6
Maximum number of copies per RCG	1
Maximum ratio of peer SDRs in a source protection domain to a target protection domain	1:6
Maximum ratio of maintenance SDRs in a source protection domain to a target protection domain	1:18
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)	Minimum: 15 seconds, Maximum: 1 hour
Maximum replicated volume size	64 TB

Table 5. PowerFlex Manager limitsThis table summarizes PowerFlexManager limits.
PowerFlex management platform capability	Limit
Maximum number of configured users	20
Maximum number of LDAP users	20
Maximum number of LDAP servers	1
Maximum number of DNS servers	1
Maximum number of time sources	1
Maximum number of Syslog servers	1
Maximum number of SMTP servers	1
Maximum number of vCenters	1

Table 6. Deployment and NDU limitsThis table summarizes PowerFlex deployment and NDU limits.
PowerFlex item	Limit
Maximum latency for MDM network	200 msec
SDS IP addresses	Must be unique. For example, 127.0.0.1 must not be used, as it refers to several machines