Edit

What are StorSimple 8000 series system limits?

  • Article
  • 4 minutes to read

Caution

ACTION REQUIRED: StorSimple Data Manager, StorSimple Device Manager, StorSimple 1200, and StorSimple 8000 have reached their end of support. End of support details were published in 2019 on the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy and Azure Communications pages. Additional notifications were also sent via email and posted on the Azure portal and StorSimple documentation site. Contact Microsoft Support for additional details.

Overview

StorSimple provides scalable and flexible storage for your datacenter. However, there are some limits that you should keep in mind as you plan, deploy, and operate your StorSimple solution. The following table describes these limits and provides some recommendations so that you can get the most out of your StorSimple solution.

Limit identifier Limit Comments
Maximum number of storage account credentials 64
Maximum number of volume containers 64
Maximum number of volumes 255
Maximum number of locally pinned volumes 32
Maximum number of schedules per bandwidth template 168 A schedule for every hour, every day of the week (24*7).
Maximum size of a tiered volume on physical devices 64 TB for 8100 and 8600 8100 and 8600 are physical devices.
Maximum size of a tiered volume on virtual devices in Azure 30 TB for 8010

64 TB for 8020		 8010 and 8020 are virtual devices in Azure that use Standard Storage and Premium Storage respectively.
Maximum size of a locally pinned volume on physical devices 8.5 TB for 8100

22.5 TB for 8600		 8100 and 8600 are physical devices.
Maximum number of iSCSI connections 512
Maximum number of iSCSI connections from initiators 512
Maximum number of access control records per device 64
Maximum number of volumes per backup policy 20
Maximum number of backups retained per schedule (in a backup policy) 64
Maximum number of schedules per backup policy 10
Maximum number of snapshots of any type that can be retained per volume 256 This number includes local snapshots and cloud snapshots.
Maximum number of snapshots that can be present in any device 10,000
Maximum number of volumes that can be processed in parallel for backup, restore, or clone 16
  • If there are more than 16 volumes, they are processed sequentially as processing slots become available.
  • New backups of a cloned or a restored tiered volume cannot occur until the operation is finished. However, for a local volume, backups are allowed after the volume is online.
Restore and clone recover time for tiered volumes < 2 minutes
  • The volume is made available within 2 minutes of restore or clone operation, regardless of the volume size.
  • The volume performance may initially be slower than normal as most of the data and metadata still resides in the cloud. Performance may increase as data flows from the cloud to the StorSimple device.
  • The total time to download metadata depends on the allocated volume size. Metadata is automatically brought into the device in the background at the rate of 5 minutes per TB of allocated volume data. This rate may be affected by Internet bandwidth to the cloud.
  • The restore or clone operation is complete when all the metadata is on the device.
  • Backup operations cannot be performed until the restore or clone operation is fully complete.
Restore recover time for locally pinned volumes < 2 minutes
  • The volume is made available within 2 minutes of the restore operation, regardless of the volume size.
  • The volume performance may initially be slower than normal as most of the data and metadata still resides in the cloud. Performance may increase as data flows from the cloud to the StorSimple device.
  • The total time to download metadata depends on the allocated volume size. Metadata is automatically brought into the device in the background at the rate of 5 minutes per TB of allocated volume data. This rate may be affected by Internet bandwidth to the cloud.
  • Unlike tiered volumes, for locally pinned volumes, the volume data is also downloaded locally on the device. The restore operation is complete when all the volume data has been brought to the device.
  • The restore operations may be long. The total time to complete the restore depends on the size of the provisioned local volume, your Internet bandwidth, and the existing data on the device. Backup operations on the locally pinned volume are allowed while the restore operation is in progress.
Processing rate for cloud snapshots 15 minutes/TB
  • Minimum time to make the cloud snapshot ready for upload, per TB of allocated volume data in backup.
  • Total cloud snapshot time is calculated by adding this time to the snapshot upload time, which is affected by the Internet bandwidth to cloud.
Maximum client read/write throughput (when served from the SSD tier)* 920/720 MB/s with a single 10 GbE network interface Up to 2x with MPIO and two network interfaces.
Maximum client read/write throughput (when served from the HDD tier)* 120/250 MB/s
Maximum client read/write throughput (when served from the cloud tier)* for Update 3 and later** 40/60 MB/s for tiered volumes

60/80 MB/s for tiered volumes with archival option selected during volume creation		 Read throughput depends on clients generating and maintaining sufficient I/O queue depth.

Speed achieved depends on the speed of the underlying storage account used.

* Maximum throughput per I/O type was measured with 100 percent read and 100 percent write scenarios. Actual throughput may be lower and depends on I/O mix and network conditions.

** Performance numbers prior to Update 3 may be lower.

Next steps

Review the StorSimple system requirements.