Forward BeeGFS Data capacity sizing

This forward sizer is for RAID 6 and DDP sizing of BeeGFS Data. To size Metadata or view mainstream disk configurations in a searchable table, scroll down.

Data protection schema:

RAID 6 DDP

RAID 6 group is fixed to 10 (8+2) in accordance with best practices. You may select multiple R6 groups or switch to DDP.

Number of RAID 6 groups (1-48):

Disk size:

4 TB 8 TB 10 TB 12 TB 18 TB 22 TB

Number of arrays (default: 1, max: 24): 1

Reverse BeeGFS Metadata capacity sizing

Provide required Usable BeeGFS Data capacity in TiB and Metadata capacity in percent (1-5%).

Note: Because metadata volumes are the busiest volumes, RAID 10 with at least 10% of over-provisioning is recommended. See NetApp TR-4800 for more on storage over-provisioning.

• Metadata disks usually use RAID 1 (RAID 10, when more than 2). You may use the obtained capacity figure and find a solution in NVMe sizer, but note that that sizer uses DDP (within which RAID 10 can be provisioned) and not the classic RAID 10 disk group. DDP-based R10 is fine, but some users may insist on "classic" RAID groups for R10.
• For "classic" RAID10, you may use the pre-calculated "classic RAID 1" examples below.

Details about data sizing

• If this page appears frozen, click on Home, then come back or just wait several seconds - sometimes it takes a while to JavaScript to pre-render. This page contains hundreds of config examples!
• This sizer is opinionated: hot spares are not included. Quote them separately, but remember to not max out the array if you want to do that (or be ready to use cold spares).
• This sizer keeps DDP preservation capacity fixed to 2 disks, regardless of the number of disks in the pool - normally one won't have tiny pools anyway. A future version may allow customization so that 1-4 may be selected. But the table at the bottom uses a more mainstream approach 1 disk for DDP up to 15 drives, 2 for DDP 30, and 3 for DDP 60.

Searchable configuration examples

This table would have thousands of entries if we computed all permutations, which would be neither practical nor useful. Instead, it focuses on common-sense configurations and keeps the number of entries manageable (currently over 600).

For an example, in the case of DDP with NL-SAS only four DDP configurations are used: 12, 15, 30 and 60 disks. The reason is 12 fits into 12-disk enclosure, and its multiples fit into a 60-drive enclosure. The 60-drive E-Series expansion enclosure can fit 4 DDP pools of 15, 2 of 30 and 1 of 60 drives.

Notes:

• Click on a column header to sort by it. Try clicking on BeeGFS (TiB), for example.
• Search rows (filter) by Model (E5760, EF600, EF600H), Protection (R1, R6, DDP, R6/DDP), number of Enclosures (1-8), or usable BeeGFS TiB (number). Try entering one of: E5760, R6, 4, 80. Not all columns are searchable (this is by design). Regular expressions and wildcards are not supported.
• As mentioned at the top, no hot spares are provided. If you want them, add them separately but you'll have to remove one RAID 6 group on your own, as R6 examples here are maxed out capacity-wise.
• DDP examples are limited to popular ones, labelled as disks_per_ddp/preservation_disks: 12/1, 15/1, 30/2, 60/3. If we use DDP 12/1, five pools fit in one 60-drive enclosure. And 30/2 means 30-large DDP with 2 disks of preservation capacity - we can fit two of those per 60-drive enclosure. Usable for DDP configurations is "usable post-RAID 6 volume capacity" which is 20% less than usable DDP capacity, e.g. (30-2) * disk_size * 0.8.
• As suggested in NVMe sizer, you may want to size flash disks for extra usable capacity for environments with high DWPD. Here, like there, no extra overprovisioning is assumed beyond factory-overprovisioned SSD capacity that doesn't impact our sizing.