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Dell HPC NFS Storage Solution High Availability Configurations with Large Capacities
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A.2. Server hardware setup
1. Prepare two PowerEdge R710 servers (called “active” and “passive”). Configure each server as
follows.
o One PERC H700 and 5 local disks each of 146 GB.
o Configure 2 disks in RAID 1 with 1 additional disk designated as the hot spare. This will be used
for the operating system.
o Configure 2 disks in RAID 0, this will be used as swap.
o 10 Gigabit Ethernet card OR InfiniBand card in slot 4, a PCI-E x8 slot.
o Two SAS 6 Gbps cards, one in slot 1, a PCI-E x4 slot and one in slot 3, a PCI-E x8 slot. The two
cards will connect to the MD3200 storage.
o iDRAC enterprise.
o Dual power supplies.
A reference for the PERC H700 storage controller is provided below. The PowerEdge R710 server
might ship from the Dell factory with 2 disks already configured in RAID 1. Insert the additional 3
disks into the server and use the referenced below to add a disk as a hot spare for the RAID 1 setup
and to configure the remaining two disks in RAID 0.
Reference: Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) H700 and H800 User‟s Guide,
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/Storlink/H700H800/en/UG/PDF/H700H800.pdf
2. Set up a Gigabit Ethernet switch for the private network. Power the Gigabit switch from one of the
APU Power PDUs. You will need at least 6 Ethernet ports on the switch - one port each for:
o Ethernet cable from power PDU1
o Ethernet cable from power PDU2
o iDRAC enterprise from active server
o iDRAC enterprise from passive server
o NIC1 from active server
o NIC1 from passive server
3. Connect the Ethernet port of each PDU to the Gigabit Ethernet private switch.
4. For each R710, cable the onboard NIC1 and iDRAC enterprise port to the Gigabit Ethernet private
switch.
5. Set up two switched power PDUs with at least 3 power ports each.
o PDU 1, port 1 for the Gigabit switch for the private network.
o PDU 1, port 2 for power supply 1 on active
o PDU 1, port 3 for power supply 1 on passive
o PDU 2, port 2 for power supply 2 on active
o PDU 2, port 3 for power supply 2 on passive
6. For each R710, plug in the two power supplies on the server to each of the two switched power
PDUs as per the designated port specification in section A.1.1, and power on the two PDUs.
7. Connect the IB or 10GbE network to the “public” network. This is the network the NFS clients are
connected to.