Installation Guide

2.2. Planning Node Hardware Configurations
2.2.2.1 General Hardware Recommendations
• At least five nodes are required for a production environment. This is to ensure that the cluster can
survive failure of two nodes without data loss.
• One of the strongest features of Acronis Storage is scalability. The bigger the cluster, the better Acronis
Storage performs. It is recommended to create production clusters from at least ten nodes for improved
resiliency, performance, and fault tolerance in production scenarios.
• Even though a cluster can be created on top of varied hardware, using nodes with similar hardware in
each node will yield better cluster performance, capacity, and overall balance.
• Any cluster infrastructure must be tested extensively before it is deployed to production. Such common
points of failure as SSD drives and network adapter bonds must always be thoroughly verified.
• It is not recommend for production to run Acronis Storage in virtual machines or on top of SAN/NAS
hardware that has its own redundancy mechanisms. Doing so may negatively affect performance and
data availability.
• At least 20% of cluster capacity should be free to avoid possible data fragmentation and performance
degradation.
• During disaster recovery, Acronis Storage may need additional disk space for replication. Make sure to
reserve at least as much space as available on a single storage node.
2.2.2.2 Storage Hardware Recommendations
• Using the recommended SSD models may help you avoid loss of data. Not all SSD drives can withstand
enterprise workloads and may break down in the first months of operation, resulting in TCO spikes.
•
SSD memory cells can withstand a limited number of rewrites. An SSD drive should be viewed as
a consumable that you will need to replace after a certain time. Consumer-grade SSD drives can
withstand a very low number of rewrites (so low, in fact, that these numbers are not shown in their
technical specifications). SSD drives intended for Acronis Storage clusters must offer at least 1 DWPD
endurance (10 DWPD is recommended). The higher the endurance, the less often SSDs will need to
be replaced, improving TCO.
•
Many consumer-grade SSD drives can ignore disk flushes and falsely report to operating systems
that data was written while it in fact was not. Examples of such drives include OCZ Vertex 3, In-
tel 520, Intel X25-E, and Intel X-25-M G2. These drives are known to be unsafe in terms of data
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