Cluster Nodes - Dell PowerEdge FE600W Hardware Installation And Troubleshooting Manual

Cluster Nodes

Table 1-1 lists the hardware requirements for the cluster nodes.
Table 1-1. Cluster Node Requirements
Component
Cluster nodes
RAM
HBA ports
NICs
Internal disk
controller
NOTE:
For more information about supported systems, HBAs and operating system
variants, see the Dell Cluster Configuration Support Matrix on the Dell High
Availability website at www.dell.com/ha.
Minimum Requirement
A minimum of two identical PowerEdge servers are required.
The maximum number of nodes that is supported depends
on the variant of the Windows Server operating system used
in your cluster, and on the physical topology in which the
storage system and nodes are interconnected.
The variant of the Windows Server operating system that is
installed on your cluster nodes determines the minimum
required amount of system RAM.
Two Fibre Channel HBAs per node, unless the server employs
an integrated or supported dual-port Fibre Channel HBA.
Where possible, place the HBAs on separate PCI buses to
improve availability and performance.
At least two NICs: one NIC for the public network and
another NIC for the private network.
NOTE:
It is recommended that the NICs on each public network
are identical, and that the NICs on each private network are
identical.
One controller connected to at least two internal hard drives
for each node. Use any supported RAID controller or disk
controller.
Two hard drives are required for mirroring (RAID 1) and at
least three are required for disk striping with parity (RAID 5).
NOTE:
It is strongly recommended that you use
hardware-based RAID or software-based disk-fault tolerance
for the internal drives.
Introduction
9