Home > Storage > PowerScale (Isilon) > Product Documentation > Management and Migration > Storage Tiering with Dell PowerScale SmartPools > Enabling L3 cache (SmartFlash)
L3 cache is enabled per node pool through a simple on or off configuration setting. When enabled, L3 cache consumes all the SSDs in a node pool. Also, L3 cache cannot co-exist with other SSD strategies, except for Global Namespace Acceleration. L3 cache node pool SSDs cannot participate in GNA.
Note: L3 cache is enabled by default on any new node pool containing SSDs.
The SmartPools settings tab, under Storage pools in the WebUI, also enables specifying whether L3 cache is the default configuration for any new node pools that contain SSDs.
When converting the SSDs in a particular node pool to use L3 cache rather than SmartPools, you can see conversion progress by periodically tracking SSD space usage (used capacity) during the process. The Flexprotect_Plus or SmartPools job is responsible for the L3 cache conversion. The job impact policy of the Flexprotect_Plus or SmartPools job can be reprioritized to run faster or slower. Doing so will increase or decrease the impact of the conversion process on cluster resources.
Note: For more information, see the OneFS SmartFlash white paper.