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EMC FAST Cache technology gives a performance enhancement to the VNX Storage Array
by adding FLASH drives as a Secondary Cache, working hand-in-hand with DRAM Cache
and enhancing overall Storage Array performance. EMC recommend firstly using available
Flash Drives for FAST Cache and then adding Flash Drives as a tier to selected FAST VP
pools as required. FAST Cache works with all VNX systems (And also CX4) and is activated
by installing the required FAST Cache Enabler. FAST Cache works with traditional Flare
LUNs and VP Pools.
Note: FAST Cache is enabled at the Pool wide level and cannot be selective for specific
LUNs within the Pool.
The initial configuration is quite simple, after adding the required quantity of drives you can
create FAST Cache through the System Properties console in Unisphere, which will enable
FAST Cache for system wide use:
Or you can use Navicli commands to create and monitor the initialization status of FAST
Cache:
naviseccli -h SPA_IP cache -fast -create disks disks -mode rw -rtype r_1
Check on the status of FAST Cache creation:
naviseccli -h SPA_IP cache -fast -info -status
If the FAST Cache configuration requires any modification then it first needs to be disabled.
By disabling (destroying) FAST Cache all dirty blocks are flushed back to disk; once FAST
Cache has completed disabling then you may re-create FAST Cache with your new
configuration.
Configuration Options
FAST Cache configuration options range from 100GB on a CX4-120 to 4.2TB of FAST
Cache on a VNX-8000.
CX4 Systems:
CX4-120 100GB
CX4-240 200GB
CX4-480 800GB
CX4-960 2000GB
VNX1 Systems:
VNX 5100 100GB
VNX 5300 500GB
VNX 5500 1000GB
VNX 5700 1500GB
VNX 7500 2100GB
VNX2 Systems:
VNX 5200 600GB
VNX 5400 1000GB
VNX 5600 2000GB
VNX 5800 3000GB
VNX 7600 4200GB
VNX 8000 4200GB
FAST Cache drives are configured as RAID-1 mirrors and it is good practice to balance the
drives across all available back-end buses; this is due to the fact that FAST Cache drives are
extremely I/O Intensive and placing more than the recommended maximum per Bus may
cause I/O saturation on the Bus. Amount of FAST Cache drives per B/E Bus differs for each
system but ideally for a CX/VNX1 system aim for no more than 4 drives per bus and 8 for a
VNX2.
The order the drives are added into FAST Cache is the order in which they are bound, with
the:
first drive being the first Primary;
the second drive being the first Secondary;
the third drive being the next Primary and so on
You can view the internal private RAID_1 Groups of FAST Cache by running the following
Navicli:
naviseccli -h SPA_IP getrg EngineeringPassword
Note: Do not mix different drive capacity sizes for FAST Cache, either use all 100GB or all
200GB drive types. Also for VNX2 systems there are two types of SSD available:
FAST Cache SSDs are single-level cell (SLC) Flash drives that are targeted for use with
FAST Cache. These drives are available in 100GB and 200GB capacities and can be used
both as FAST Cache and as TIER-1 drives in a storage pool.
FAST VP SSDs are enterprise Multi-level cell (eMLC) drives that are targeted for use as
TIER-1 drives in a storage pool (Not supported as FAST Cache drives). They are available
in three flavors 100GB, 200GB and 400GB.
Best Suited
Here I have listed conditions that you should factor when deciding if FAST Cache will be a
good fit for your environment:
VNX Storage Processor Utilization is under 70-percent
There is evidence of regular forced Write Cache Flushing
The majority I/O block size is under 64K (OLTP Transactions are typically 8K)
The disk utilization of RAID Groups is consistently running above 60-70%
Your workload is predominately random read I/O
Your production LUNs have a high percentage of read cache misses
Host response times are unacceptable