plain barn
So what is up with the new all-flash FAS500f name, is it a new name standard?
What does the "f" suffix letter mean?
Are there more suffix letters planned?
It is my understanding that FAS500f is supposed to be a fast nearstore. What is your take on how it fits the line-up?
bleak coral
The FAS500f is using SSDs made out of QLC NAND Flash. Only these SSDs are supported on this model. So yeah, calling it a AFF (All-Flash-FAS) would make sense.
The issue is that QLC-SSDs have a "much" higher latency compared to the usual SSDs being used in the other AFF models (think 2-4ms vs. below 1ms). Since NetApp does not want customers to compare this model with other AFF models (especially from other vendors) the idea was to name it FAS with a small "f". That's the story I heard at least.
And yes, one use-case is a "faster" Nearstore. But you could also use it for your tier 2 workloads where these ~0,1ms latencies are not needed.