Use cases

Concentrated Dispersal is ideally suited for the case where the system size is relatively small and is expected to remain small for the near term. There is no setting to enable or disable this feature. Instead it is activated whenever a Device Set is created which has 3 - 9 Slicestor devices. This feature should be used when the required usable capacity is on the order of 20 hard drives worth of usable storage capacity. Common reasons for deploying this quantity of Slicestor devices include:

• When the planned path of expanding the system needs to remain small (several Slicestor devices at a time)
• When seeking to minimize cost with an entry-level system

Reasons to reconsider using the Concentrated Dispersal feature:

• When it is necessary to use a feature that Concentrated Dispersal is not compatible with (See the list of Incompatible and Non-Supported Operations)
• When non-standard IDA Configurations must be explicitly configured
• When maintenance operations cannot readily replace failed hard drives
• When high performance is a primary concern
• When achieving the highest possible availability is a paramount concern