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Hardware Requirements for Storage

Hardware Requirements for Storage

Hardware requirements for implementing a storage cluster in a corporate enterprise and the best practices for maintaining it.

Note

Swarm installs and runs on enterprise-class (not consumer-grade) x86 commodity hardware.

Caution

Configure a cluster with a minimum of four nodes to guarantee high availability and failover in the event of a node failure.

Virtualization

Swarm storage nodes can run in a VM environment. Swarm supports VMware/ESXi and Linux KVM. Contact sales for more information and guidance.

Best Practice

Enable volume serial numbers on any virtual machines housing Swarm storage nodes (set disk.EnableUUID=TRUE).

Minimum Requirements

The following table lists the minimum hardware requirements for a storage cluster because Swarm nodes are designed to run using lights-out management (or out-of-band management), they do not require a keyboard, monitor, and mouse (KVM) to operate.

Component

Requirement

Component

Requirement

Node

x86 with Pentium-class CPUs

Number of nodes

Four (to guarantee adequate recovery space in the event of node failure)

Switch

Nodes must connect to switches configured for multicasting

Log server

To accept incoming syslog messages

Node boot capability

USB flash drive or PXE boot

Network interfaces

One Gigabit Ethernet NIC with one RJ-45 port *

Hard disks

One hard disk

RAM

number of volumes x 4 GB (example: 2 volumes x 4 GB = 8 GB)

NTP server

To synchronize clocks across nodes

Recommended Requirements

The following table lists the recommended hardware requirements for a storage cluster.

Component

Requirement

Component