Which ONTAP feature helps reduce on-premises footprint by moving less frequently accessed data to cheaper storage?

• A. SVM DR
• B. SnapVault
• C. FabricPool
• D. FlexGroup

Answer: (C)

The idea being tested is data tiering to cut on‑prem storage by moving cold data to a cheaper tier. FabricPool is ONTAP’s feature that does exactly that: it offloads less frequently accessed data from the on‑prem NAS to a cheaper object store (cloud or on‑prem) while keeping hot data on fast local storage. The data movement is automatic and transparent to users—the system keeps lightweight metadata on the primary storage and fetches data from the object store when needed. This reduces the on‑prem footprint without making users change how they access files. Other options don’t perform this automatic tiering to cheap storage: SnapVault is for backups, SVM DR is for disaster recovery, and FlexGroup is for scaling NAS performance and capacity, not for tiering data to cheaper storage.