Slicestor® Nodes

Monitor the capacity, space usage, and tolerance to drive failures of the COS Slicestor nodes in IBM Cloud Object Storage. See the storage pools that the COS Slicestor nodes belong to and the sites that the nodes are distributed to.

A COS Slicestor node is a device, such as a server or a virtual machine, that is used to store object data in IBM Cloud Object Storage. Data is stored in vaults on the COS Slicestor nodes.

Tip: In the manager applications for IBM Cloud Object Storage, storage capacity is represented in decimal (base 10) units, such as kilobyte (KB), megabyte (MB), and gigabyte (GB). In IBM Storage Insights Pro, storage capacity is represented in binary (base 2) units such as kibibyte (KiB), mebibyte (MiB), and gibibyte (GiB). For more information, see Units of measurement for storage data.

Additional information is provided about the following attributes of COS Slicestor nodes:

Acknowledged

Shows whether a user marked the status of the COS Slicestor node as acknowledged. An acknowledged status indicates that the status was reviewed and is either resolved or can be ignored.

Drives

The number of hard disk drives, solid-state drives, and flash modules in the COS Slicestor node. Click the number to view information about the drives, such as the firmware version and the hardware model.

Drive Failure Tolerance

The tolerance of the COS Slicestor node to drive failures. The lower the value for drive failure tolerance, the greater the storage risk for the node. A value of 0 means that the node can no longer store vault data.

Drive failure tolerance information is shown only for IBM Cloud Object Storage with firmware version 3.10.0.117 or later on the manager node.

The value that is shown for drive failure tolerance depends on the following attributes:

Drive Error Threshold: The error threshold value for the number of failed drives on the node. If the number of failed drives on the node ≥ the error threshold, an error status is shown for the node and the node is not used to store vault data.
Drive Warning Threshold: The warning threshold value for the number of failed drives on the node. The node is at risk of storage failure when the number of failed drives ≥ the warning threshold.
Drive Failures: The number of failed drives on the node. The node is not used to store vault data when the number of failed drives ≥ the error threshold.

The formula that is used to calculate drive failure tolerance is as follows:

Drive Failure Tolerance = Drive Error Threshold - Drive Failures

The following values might be shown:

Drive Failure Tolerance	Description
0	The node cannot store vault data because the number of failed drives ≥ the error threshold.
1	The node is at risk of storage failure because the number of failed drives ≥ the warning threshold. If 1 more drive fails on the node, the drive error threshold is reached and the node will be unavailable to store vault data. For example, the drive error threshold is 4, the drive warning threshold is 3, and the number of failed drives is 3. The drive failure tolerance is calculated as 1 and a warning icon is shown as the number of failed drives = the drive warning threshold.
5	The node has a high tolerance to drive failures. The node will be unavailable to store vault data if 5 drives fail.

Model

The model of the COS Slicestor node. The model name or number is assigned by the hardware vendor or manufacturer.

Serial Number

The serial number of the COS Slicestor node, which is assigned by the vendor or manufacturer.

Set ID

The ID of the device set that the COS Slicestor node belongs to.

Site

The location, such as the geographical location or the building, of the COS Slicestor node. To ensure high availability for the vault data in IBM Cloud Object Storage, you can distribute the nodes to multiple sites.

Software Version

The version of the IBM Cloud Object Storage software on the COS Slicestor node.

Status

The status of the COS Slicestor node. Use the status to determine the condition of the node, and if any actions must be taken. If multiple COS Slicestor nodes have an Error status, the vault data might be unavailable.

The node status is affected by the tolerance of the node to drive failures. A Warning status is shown for the node if the number of failed drives ≥ the drive warning threshold. An Error status is shown if the number of failed drives ≥ the drive error threshold and the node cannot store vault data.