HPE SimpliVity 380 Gen10 LFF H and HPE SimpliVity 380 Gen10 SFF H nodes are two types of HPE SimpliVity nodes that differ in their form factor, storage capacity, and performance. LFF stands for large form factor, which means that the node has 3.5-inch hard disk drives (HDDs) and can support up to 40 TB of raw storage capacity. SFF stands for small form factor, which means that the node has
2.5-inch solid state drives (SSDs) and can support up to 23.4 TB of raw storage capacity12.
HPE SimpliVity nodes can be grouped into clusters, which are logical units of compute and storage resources that share the same configuration and policies. HPE SimpliVity clusters can be further grouped into federations, which are collections of clusters that span across different physical locations and provide unified management and data protection34.
For this setup, the recommended design is to put SFF and LFF nodes in separate clusters, but within the same federation. According to the HPE SimpliVity Federation Design and Scaling Guide document, the following reasons support this recommendation:
Mixing SFF and LFF nodes in the same cluster can cause performance and capacity imbalance, as the SFF nodes have faster SSDs and lower storage capacity than the LFF nodes. This can affect the data distribution, deduplication, compression, and backup operations within the cluster .
Separating SFF and LFF nodes into different clusters can allow the customer to optimize the workload placement and performance based on the node characteristics. For example, the customer can use the SFF cluster for high-performance and low-capacity workloads, such as databases or virtual desktops, and use the LFF cluster for low-performance and high-capacity workloads, such as file servers or archives .
Keeping SFF and LFF nodes within the same federation can enable the customer to benefit from the centralized management and data protection features of HPE SimpliVity. The customer can use the same interface to monitor and control the nodes across the clusters, and use the same policies to backup and restore the data across the sites .
References:
1: HPE SimpliVity 380 Gen10 LFF H Node Data sheet 2: HPE SimpliVity 380 Gen10 SFF H Node Data sheet 3: HPE SimpliVity Data Virtualization Platform 4: HPE SimpliVity Federation Design and Scaling Guide : [HPE SimpliVity 380 Gen10 Node Data sheet - PSNow] : [HPE SimpliVity 380 Gen10 Node | HPE Store US] : [HPE SimpliVity Intelligent Workload Optimizer] : [HPE SimpliVity with HPE StoreOnce Reference Architecture] : [HPE SimpliVity Stretched Cluster Guide] : [HPE SimpliVity Remote RapidDR Software Installation and Startup Service]