Dell PowerVault ME4 Series Storage System Deployment Guide

16 Gb Fibre Channel host connection

To connect controller modules to a FC host, select a qualified FC SFP+ transceiver. For information about configuring HBAs, see the Fibre Channel topics under Perform host setup.

Use the cabling diagrams to connect the host servers to the switches. See the Dell PowerVault ME4 Series Storage System Support Matrix for supported Fibre Channel HBAs.

• Install and connect each FC HBA to a switch that is connected to the host ports on the two controllers as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2.
• In hybrid examples, one server and switch manage FC traffic, and the other server and switch manage iSCSI traffic.
• For FC, each initiator must be zoned with a single host port or multiple host ports only (single initiator, multi-target of the same kind).

Connecting host servers directly to the storage system is also supported.

Qualified options support cable lengths of 1 m (3.28 ft.), 2 m (6.56 ft.), 5 m (16.40 ft.), 15 m (49.21 ft.), 30 m (98.43 ft.), and 50 m (164.04 ft.) for OM4 multimode optical cables and OM3 multimode FC cables. A 0.5 m (1.64 ft.) cable length is also supported for OM3. In addition to providing host connection, these cables are used for connecting two storage systems through a switch, to facilitate use of the optional replication feature.