IBM FlashSystem 9200 SFF NVMe Control Enclosure (9848-AG8)

9848-AG8 is the IBM FlashSystem 9200 SFF NVMe control enclosure, a 2U unit that holds up to 24 NVMe-capable flash drives and runs IBM Spectrum Virtualize. Machine type 9848 has two models, AG8 and UG8, while machine type 9846 has AG8 only. The UG8 is physically and functionally identical to the 9848-AG8, differing in target configurations and variable capacity billing.

Each control enclosure has two canisters holding four 8-core processors in total. Cache runs from 256 GB (128 GB per canister) up to 1.5 TB (768 GB per canister), with feature ACGJ adding 512 GB and ACGB adding a further 768 GB. Eight 10 Gb Ethernet ports are standard for iSCSI, and adapters add 32 Gb and 16 Gb Fibre Channel, 25 Gb Ethernet and 10 Gb Ethernet ports, with 12 Gb SAS ports for expansion enclosures. Up to four control enclosures form a cluster, each with up to two chains of SAS expansion enclosures.

Drives are dual-port, hot-swappable 2.5-inch NVMe: IBM FlashCore Modules of 4.8 TB (AHS5), 9.6 TB (AHS6), 19.2 TB (AHS7) and 38.4 TB (AHS8), industry-standard NVMe drives from 800 GB up to 15.36 TB, and up to 12 NVMe Storage Class Memory drives of 375 GB, 750 GB, 800 GB or 1.6 TB. FlashCore Modules include built-in compression and encryption, and all modules in one DRAID 6 array must be the same type and capacity.

Expansion attaches as Model AFF (24 SFF drives) or Model A9F (high-density LFF), with a 12 Gb SAS card in one of the I/O slots. The 9200R rack-built variants carry two, three or four AG8 enclosures, as the 9202R, 9203R and 9204R, with a pair of 16-port FC switches in each rack.