## 8.5 General preferred practices integrating FlashSystem 900 with ProtecTIER 

This section describes some preferred practices that you can use when working with ProtecTIER and IBM FlashSystem 900: 

GLYPH<SM590000> Make sure that you use ProtecTIER v3.3.5.2 or later. 

GLYPH<SM590000> Always use RAID 5 Configuration with FlashSystem 900. 

GLYPH<SM590000> The suggested zoning is to use four paths between each FlashSystem volume and each ProtecTIER Server. 

Deploy FlashSystem according to your environment needs: 

GLYPH<SM590000> ProtecTIER metadata only: 

– Use any number of supported FlashSystem 900 modules in RAID 5 configuration according to the required repository metadata capacity. 

– Determine metadata capacity and layoutbased on ProtecTIER Metadata Planner tool. 

GLYPH<SM590000> High I/O per second (IOPS) host structures and ProtecTIER metadata. 

GLYPH<SM590000> Entire ProtecTIER repository (user data and metadata): 

– Use 12-module FlashSystem 900 in a RAID 5 configuration. 

– Create at least 40 user data volumes of equal size. User data volumes map to repository file systems: 

GLYPH<129> Max 170 file systems in a ProtecTIER deduplication repository. 

GLYPH<129> Ensure file systems take into account future growth considerations. 

– Create metadata volumes according to the ProtecTIER Metadata Planner output. 

For more details about IBM FlashSystem 900, see the following publications: 

GLYPH<SM590000> FlashSystem 900 Product Guide , TIPS1261 

GLYPH<SM590000> Implementing IBM FlashSystem 900 , SG24-8271 

