Deployment Guide

Introduction

CAUTION: See the Safety, Environmental, and Regulatory Information document for important

safety information before following any procedures listed in this document.

An enclosure containing physical disk drives accessed through Enclosure Management Modules (EMMs)

is called a storage enclosure. A storage enclosure includes various hardware components such as

physical disk drives, EMMs, fans, and power supply units (PSUs). One or more host servers attached to the

storage enclosure can access the data on the storage enclosure. You can also establish multiple physical

network paths between the hosts and the storage enclosure so that loss of any single path (for example,

through failure of a host server port) does not result in loss of access to data on the storage enclosure.

The storage enclosure is managed by the Storage Enclosure Management software running on a host

server. On the host server system, the management software and the storage enclosure communicate

management requests and event information by using in-band SAS connections.

Terminology

• Storage Enclosure: When the MD1280 is attached to a server directly or other MD1280 enclosures, it

is referred to as a Storage Enclosure. This document applies to the deployment and configuration of

the MD1280 as a Storage Enclosure.

The deployment process includes:

• Hardware installation

• Initial system configuration

• Storage Enclosure Management Software installation

NOTE: For more information about product documentation, see Related Documentation available

at Dell.com/support.

The Storage Enclosure Management Software tools enable an administrator to monitor and update the

storage enclosure for optimum usability. The Storage Enclosure Management Software is supported on

various Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems (OSs). For more information about specific

supported OSs, refer to the MD1280 Support Matrix at Dell.com/support/home.

System requirements

Before installing and configuring the Dell Storage MD1280 series hardware and software, ensure that the

supported OS is installed and minimum system requirements are fulfilled. For more information, see the

Dell MD1280 Support Matrix at Dell.com/support/home.

NOTE: Dell supports Microsoft Windows and Linux host OSs with the Dell Storage MD1280 series

enclosure. For more information about the specific OSs supported by storage enclosure, refer to

the Dell MD1280 Support Matrix available at Dell.com/support/home.