Skip to main content
Unified Data Storage

NetApp AFF C-Series

NetApp AFF C-Series product family is game-changing capacity flash storage designed to modernize general-purpose workloads and increase IT agility without breaking the bank.

NetApp AFF C-Series

Organizations are striving to make their ITOps more cost- and energy-efficient while also meeting their performance and capacity requirements.

AFF C-Series systems help customers achieve these goals by reducing data center costs with a solution that's more sustainable and efficient than hybrid flash and HDD systems. The budget-friendly AFF C-Series is ideal for a wide range of general-purpose applications.

It's also a great choice for hosting database and VM copies for DevTest sandboxes and serves as an ultrareliable replication target. AFF C-Series systems are built on high-density NVMe capacity flash technology.

They also offer scale and flexibility to meet dynamic storage demands. This facilitates uninterrupted growth and adaptability, making the AFF C-Series ideal for general-purpose applications and consolidated workloads.

The AFF C-Series features comprehensive management with one intuitive interface for all storage and Data Services delivering simplified workflows, centralized administration, and complete control. With the AFF C-Series, your storage infrastructure is not just meeting current demands—it's primed to adapt to the evolving needs of the future.

Key Highlights

At a glance

  • Users modernizing from hybrid flash can reduce their footprint by up to 99%, consume up to 97% less energy…
  • Unified capacity for block, file, and object workloads provides seamless scaling from 122TB to over 700PB of effective capacity.
NetApp AFF C-Series overview

Features and Benefits

The capabilities that set NetApp AFF C-Series apart.

Unlock unprecedented, unified capacity for block, file, and object workloads

Nondisruptive Growth and Adaptability

Achieve nondisruptive growth and adaptability by seamlessly scaling your storage infrastructure from 122TB to 700+PB effective capacity.

Comprehensive Data Management

Enjoy comprehensive data management for consolidated workloads, including replication, data tiering, and adaptive QoS.

Centralized Management with NetApp Console

The NetApp Console centralizes management across your NetApp systems to simplify operations, consolidate insights, and safeguard every action with secure-first design.

High Availability

Built for 99.9999% availability.

Maximize storage density and efficiency to accelerate modernization

Reduce Data Center Footprint

Reduce data center footprint with ultradense drives and best-in-class data reduction.

Boost Performance and Slash Power Consumption

Boost performance and slash power consumption and environmental impact by modernizing from hybrid flash to the all-flash AFF C-Series.

Save on Storage Costs

Save up to 70% on storage costs through automated data tiering to the cloud.

Single Storage OS

Leverage a single storage OS to manage, protect, and mobilize data across your hybrid cloud.

Protect your data through real-time ransomware detection with industry-leading 99%+ accuracy

Protect your data through real-time ransomware detection with industry-leading 99%+ accuracy

Cyberthreat Shielding

Shield your data from cyberthreats with built-in AI/ML-based ransomware detection, SIEM/XDR integrations, and guaranteed recovery that includes end-to-end orchestration.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Maintain business continuity and speed disaster recovery with integrated solutions that minimize disruptions, even during site failures.

Highest Level of Security and Compliance

Provide the highest level of security and compliance for sensitive data with the only enterprise storage validated by NSA CSfC for top-secret data.

Maximize density and efficiency

Superior Storage Density

Ultradense capacity flash combined with NetApp deduplication and compression delivers superior storage density without affecting performance.

Eliminate Storage Silos

The AFF C-Series eliminates inefficient storage silos to reduce storage sprawl, and boosts performance while slashing power consumption.

Unified Storage Management

With a single storage OS, you can seamlessly manage, protect, and mobilize data across data centers and hybrid cloud environments, streamlining operations and enhancing data management.

Unified storage OS powered by ONTAP

Effective and Secure Data Management

Part of our unified data storage portfolio, the AFF C-Series is powered by NetApp ONTAP software, which provides effective, secure data management and consistent access to data services across environments. A unified management experience results in ease of use and efficiency, eliminating infrastructure silos and data bottlenecks and delivering unmatched simplicity at scale.

Common Feature Set Across Environments

ONTAP provides a common set of features across on-premises and cloud storage, which simplifies operations so that IT teams can focus on strategic business priorities. It allows you to manage storage across a hybrid multicloud that spans flash, disk, and cloud running block, file, and object workloads. You can easily move data within or between storage clusters or to the cloud—wherever it's most useful. ONTAP is the foundation for the intelligent data infrastructure that powers data to drive innovation.

Consolidate workloads and expand capacity without disruption

Nondisruptive Clustering Scale-Out

Built on the nondisruptive clustering scale-out architecture in ONTAP, AFF C-Series systems allow you to expand capacity with ease, eliminating storage silos and painful data migrations.

Workload Consolidation

  • Consolidate workloads on AFF C-Series systems, and safeguard SLAs in multiworkload and multitenant environments with built-in adaptive QoS
  • Manage massively scalable NAS containers of up to 20PB and 400 billion files with a single namespace

Tier cold data to the cloud for greater storage and energy savings

Hybrid Cloud Integration

A hybrid cloud IT infrastructure powered by NetApp technology lets you simplify and integrate data management across cloud and on-premises environments to meet business demands and gain a competitive edge.

Maximize Performance and Reduce Costs

With the AFF C-Series, you can maximize performance and reduce overall storage costs by up to 70% by automatically tiering cold data to the cloud. This allows you to reserve flash storage for more frequently used data while also consuming less energy.

Leading Cloud Integrations

With NetApp's leading cloud integrations, you can also connect to more clouds for more data services, such as backup and recovery, replication, tiering, and ransomware resilience. Best of all you can simply manage all your data, either on premises or in the cloud, with the NetApp Console centralized management plane.

Keep critical data secure, available, and protected

NSA CSfC Validated

NetApp AFF systems are the only hardened enterprise storage validated by the NSA's CSfC program to store top-secret data.

Integrated and Application-Consistent Data Protections

  • Robust protection through multifactor authentication, immutable tamperproof NetApp Snapshot copies, end-to-end encryption, and automatic blocking of malicious file types
  • Real-time autonomous ransomware detection, enhanced by embedded machine learning (ML) models, designed for industry-first 99%+ accuracy
  • SIEM/XDR integrations
  • Integrated active-active business continuity
  • Cyber-vault capability that combines advanced encryption, immutable backups, and air-gapped storage
  • Application-consistent data protection and clone management with the NetApp SnapCenter licensed capability
  • Replication to any NetApp AFF or FAS system on the premises or in the cloud with NetApp SnapMirror technology
  • Guaranteed recovery with end-to-end orchestration through the NetApp Ransomware Recovery Guarantee and Ransomware Recovery Assurance Service

Integrate business continuity and get fast disaster recovery

Constant Data Availability

With AFF, you can maintain constant data availability with zero data loss and zero downtime if a disruption or disaster occurs.

NetApp MetroCluster Software

NetApp MetroCluster software replicates your data synchronously to a separate location to protect your entire system. If something goes wrong at one site, your applications automatically and instantaneously switch to the other site.

SnapMirror Active Sync

For a more tailored approach, choose NetApp SnapMirror active sync to cost-efficiently replicate the most critical data while taking advantage of the increased performance, greater flexibility, and enhanced load-balancing capability that come with the symmetric active-active architecture.

Comprehensive Security Solutions

With NetApp's comprehensive security solutions, you can achieve FIPS 140-2 compliance (Level 1 and Level 2) with self-encrypting drives. And you can meet governance, risk, and compliance requirements with security features such as secure purge, logging and auditing monitors, and write once, read many (WORM) file locking.

Future-proof your investments

Storage Lifecycle Program

Eliminate the headache of tech refreshes by using the Storage Lifecycle Program: Get a new controller every 3 years with support-managed updates included, or move to the cloud—whichever best meets your needs.

Storage Efficiency Guarantee

Achieve high performance while minimizing storage cost with the Storage Efficiency Guarantee: If we don't meet your workload goals, we'll make it right at no cost to you.

Ransomware Recovery Guarantee

Recover data with the Ransomware Recovery Guarantee: If you can't recover your data copies with help from NetApp or a partner, NetApp will offer compensation.

Flexibly consume storage resources

Flexible Consumption Options

Like the rest of the NetApp portfolio, AFF C-Series systems are available through traditional capital expenditure (capex) or as a service with the NetApp Keystone portfolio. Gain financial flexibility as you modernize, and better align IT expenditure to business needs.

AFF C-Series Software

Data access protocols

FC, iSCSI, NVMe/FC, NVMe/TCP, FCoE, NFS, SMB, S3

High availability

  • Active-active controller architecture
  • Up to 4 nodes per site on SnapMirror active sync (formerly SnapMirror Business Continuity)
  • Nondisruptive maintenance, upgrade, and scale-out clustering
  • Multisite resilience for continuous data access

Storage efficiency

  • Inline data compression, deduplication, and compaction
  • Space-efficient LUN, file, and volume cloning
  • Automatic data tiering

Data management

  • Intuitive onboard GUI, REST APIs, and automation integration
  • AI-informed predictive analytics and corrective action
  • QoS workload control
  • Easy provisioning and data management from market-leading host operating systems, hypervisors, and application software

Scalable NAS

  • Large-scale single namespace management with local and remote caching
  • Asymmetrical striping of large files across ONTAP FlexGroup volumes
  • API support for NAS volumes sharing their data through S3

Data protection

  • Application-consistent Snapshot copies and restore
  • Integrated remote backup/disaster recovery
  • Synchronous zero-data-loss replication
  • Tamperproof Snapshot copies

Security and compliance

  • Autonomous ransomware protection
  • Multifactor admin access
  • Secure multitenant shared storage
  • In-flight and data-at-rest encryption
  • Regulatory-compliant data retention
  • Multi-admin verification before executing sensitive commands

Cloud integration

  • Seamlessly tier, back up, replicate, and cache data to private and public clouds
  • Move data between major public cloud services
  • Cloud mediator in NetApp Console
Expert Guidance

Thrive with expert-led storage guidance

Get tailored advice on how NetApp AFF C-Series fits your environment — from sizing and deployment to long-term optimization.

Thrive with expert-led storage guidance

Technical Specifications

Exhaustive hardware and software metrics extracted directly from official documentation.

  • Maximum scale-out
    2–24 nodes (12 HA pairs)
  • Maximum SSDs
    2880
  • Maximum effective capacity
    707PB
  • Controller form factor
    4U with 48 SSD slots
  • PCIe expansion slots (per HA pair)
    18
  • FC target ports (64Gb autoranging)
    56
  • 200GbE ports (100GbE/40GbE autoranging)
    24
  • 100GbE ports (40GbE autoranging)
    36
  • 25GbE ports (10GbE autoranging)
    56
  • 10GBASE-T (1GbE autoranging)
    56
  • Storage networking supports
    NVMe/TCP, NVMe/FC, FC, iSCSI, NFS, pNFS, CIFS/SMB, S3
  • OS version
    ONTAP 9.16.1 or later
  • Shelves and media
    NS224 (2U, 24 drives, NVMe QLC SSDs)
  • Power consumption (median)
    1654W
  • Host/client OS supported
    Windows Server, Linux, Oracle Solaris, IBM AIX, HP-UX, macOS, VMware ESX

  • Maximum scale-out
    2-8 nodes (4 HA pairs)
  • Maximum SSDs
    480
  • Maximum effective capacity
    118PB
  • Controller form factor
    2U with 24 SSD slots
  • PCIe expansion slots (per HA pair)
    8
  • FC target ports (64Gb autoranging)
    24
  • 200GbE ports (100GbE/40GbE autoranging)
    n/a
  • 100GbE ports (40GbE autoranging)
    16
  • 25GbE ports (10GbE autoranging)
    24
  • 10GBASE-T (1GbE autoranging)
    24
  • Storage networking supports
    NVMe/TCP, NVMe/FC, FC, iSCSI, NFS, pNFS, CIFS/SMB, S3
  • OS version
    ONTAP 9.16.1 or later
  • Shelves and media
    NS224 (2U, 24 drives, NVMe QLC SSDs)
  • Power consumption (median)
    628W
  • Host/client OS supported
    Windows Server, Linux, Oracle Solaris, IBM AIX, HP-UX, macOS, VMware ESX

  • Maximum scale-out
    2-8 nodes (4 HA pairs)
  • Maximum SSDs
    288
  • Maximum effective capacity
    29.4PB
  • Controller form factor
    2U with 24 SSD slots
  • PCIe expansion slots (per HA pair)
    8
  • FC target ports (64Gb autoranging)
    24
  • 200GbE ports (100GbE/40GbE autoranging)
    n/a
  • 100GbE ports (40GbE autoranging)
    16
  • 25GbE ports (10GbE autoranging)
    24
  • 10GBASE-T (1GbE autoranging)
    24
  • Storage networking supports
    NVMe/TCP, NVMe/FC, FC, iSCSI, NFS, pNFS, CIFS/SMB, S3
  • OS version
    ONTAP 9.16.1 or later
  • Shelves and media
    NS224 (2U, 24 drives, NVMe QLC SSDs)
  • Power consumption (median)
    628W
  • Host/client OS supported
    Windows Server, Linux, Oracle Solaris, IBM AIX, HP-UX, macOS, VMware ESX

Compare NetApp AFF C-Series Series

Select the right scale for your workload demands.

Compare NetApp AFF C-Series Series — capacity and port configuration by model.
Model Name Max Capacity Port Config Action
AFF C80 707PB maximum effective capacity, 2880 SSDs 56 FC (64Gb), 24x 200GbE, 36x 100GbE, 56x 25GbE, 56x 10GBASE-T Get Quote
AFF C60 118PB maximum effective capacity, 480 SSDs 24 FC (64Gb), 16x 100GbE, 24x 25GbE, 24x 10GBASE-T Get Quote
AFF C30 29.4PB maximum effective capacity, 288 SSDs 24 FC (64Gb), 16x 100GbE, 24x 25GbE, 24x 10GBASE-T Get Quote

Ready to get started?

Get your data flowing from edge to core to cloud.

Talk to a specialist

Request a custom quote

Build a configuration with a Unified Data Storage specialist.

Request a quote

Download the datasheet

Full specs, performance metrics, and deployment notes.

Get the datasheet

Learn more

Explore resources

Datasheets, whitepapers, case studies, and technical documentation.

Explore resources

View solutions

Tailored storage and data management solutions for your workloads.

View solutions

Most secure storage on the planet FIPS 140-3 · NSA CSfC · DoDIN APL
Validated for top-secret data Only enterprise storage to hold this certification
Authorized NetApp Partner SANDataWorks · a division of BlueAlly