Dell Storage with Microsoft Storage Spaces Best Practices Guide

This solution is intended to provide high availability (HA). When integrating the solution in to your switch infrastructure, ensure that there exists redundant network connections between the SMB clients and the SOFS storage nodes.

SMB client communication to the storage nodes must use 10 GbE-capable switches. This solution requires deploying two top-of-rack 10 GbE-capable switches to ensure path redundancy. You must configure the switches for jumbo frames with the MTU frame size set to the highest MTU that the switch supports, typically 9 KB. Also, you must enable flow control on the switch for receiving but not for data transmission.

Management and iDRAC communication can use 1 GbE-capable switches. Dell recommends you to deploy two 1 GbE-capable switches for redundancy, but is not required.

For more information about a list of the latest validated Dell switches for this solution, see Dell Storage with Microsoft Storage Spaces Support Matrix available at Dell.com/dsmsmanuals.