So i built a 2 node S2D cluster a while ago at home on some old HP G6 nodes i got cheap. But have decided to get rid of that and setup a new 3 node cluster with bit’s i can find on ebay. And reuse disks i have. This will be a multipart blog post as the parts are orderd and they come in. And during the build process. I will provide a step by step guide in building it, installing, configuring, monitoring and troubleshooting Storage Spaces Direct. Including switch config.
So the hardware i have decided on is a HP DL380e G8 25sff chassie as it has 2 2.5″ drive bays in the rear including an extra 2 PCIe slot’s. These are addon’s and need to be orderd. So the list of HP hardware is as follows
Servers
3 x HP DL380e G8 SFF 2xXeon 8Core E5-2450l cpu with 128GB memory. About 850 USD pr server.
3 x HP H220 About 75 USD a piece
3 x HP 663280-B21 Rear SFF kit About 240 USD a piece
3 x HP 688037-001 PCIe riser cage About 95 USD a piece
3 x HP 687962-001 PCIe board About 55 USD a piece
Disk Drives
Intel P3600 400GB PCIe NVME for cache. Need 6 about 350 USD a piece. EOL product
Samsung SM863a 960GB SSD 3 pr server. About 450 USD a piece
WD Red NAS 1 TB 2.5″ HDD. 4 on each server. About 70 USD a piece.
Networking
3 x Mellanox ConnectX3 MCX312A-XCBT 10Gbit about 90 USD a piece. Might go for MCX314A-BCBT 40GB cards as i have 2.
I have a Quanta LB8 10Gbit switch that i will start off with and test with. But want to test with a 40Gbit switch as well and is looking into this switch.
Arista DCS-7050QX-32 wich is a 32x40gbit QSFP switch with DCBx functionality. And prised at only 750 USD on ebay it’s a bargain for 40Gbit test lab.
The goal
Is to build a lab to test new builds of Storage Spaces Direct, as it will run insider build on the physical hosts. And install a nested 2 node S2D cluster to test new versions of S2D on. And to start testing out Azure Stack and Project Honolulu with HyperConverged.
And t
So stay tuned for more posts about this build.
Jan-Tore
B120 is SATA only. I will reconsider using two SATA SSDs into RAID1 with onboard. FYI: works also if you define all SAS disks on P420 as RAID1 (JBOD).
AF
Yes that is correct. It is not supported to use Raid mode on disks for S2D. They need to be pure HBA pass trough.
Jan-Tore
I am in similar project. 2× DL380e LFF with 14bays (two from behind), 2× 600GB SAS for system, 2×Samsung 900GB SSDs for cache, 4×4TB SAS.
Do you have any experience using H220 HBA together with P420
Regards, Andrej
Should work ok. Plan is to use P420 for the 2 rear bays for OS drives? I was using the onboard B120 prev for the 2 rear bays.
JT
Looking forward to your next post in this series.