Dell EMC PowerVault MD32XX/36XX Series Support Matrix

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Dell EMC PowerVault MD Series storage array rules

This section contains both general and model-specific connectivity and consideration rules for Dell EMC PowerVault MD storage arrays. The rules listed in Table 2 apply to all storage array models. For rules applying to specific Dell EMC PowerVault MD models, see Table 3 and Table 4.

NOTE: Dell EMC PowerVault MD3260, MD3260i, MD3660i, and MD3660f platforms are supported in dual-RAID controller (duplex) configurations only.

Table 1. Dell EMC PowerVault MD Series storage array rules for all models . This table describes the Dell EMC PowerVault MD Series storage array rules for all models.
Rule	Dell EMC PowerVault MD32x0 series	Dell EMC PowerVault MD32x0i series	Dell EMC PowerVault MD36x0i series	Dell EMC PowerVault MD36x0f series
	6 Gbps SAS	1 Gbps iSCSI	10 Gbps iSCSI	8 Gbps Fibre Channel
Maximum number of host servers a single storage array can connect to with one RAID controller module installed	4	2	64	64
Maximum number of host servers a single storage array can connect to with two RAID controller modules installed	8 (4, if using high availability)	32	64	64
Maximum number of Dell EMC 6 Gb SAS HBA cards supported in a single host server attached to single array. (Dell EMC recommends that you use two Dell EMC 6 Gb SAS HBA cards for all redundant cabling configurations.)	2 (each card has two ports)	N/A	N/A	N/A
Unused ports on a Dell EMC 6 Gb SAS HBA card already connected to a PowerVault MD3260 cannot connect to another device (such as a tape drive or other model storage array).	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A
Maximum number of PowerVault MD Series Storage Arrays a host server may connect to:	2 (HA)	4	4	4
A hot-spare for a disk group must be a physical disk drive of equal or greater disk space than any of the member drives.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
When using out-of-band management with SMcli by specifying the RAID controller management port IP addresses on the Dell EMC PowerVault MD Storage Array, SMcli commands that change the attributes of a virtual disk, virtual disk copy, or snapshot virtual disk, must have management access to the owning RAID controller module. Dell EMC recommends that you specify both management port IP addresses on the SMcli invocation: SMcli 192.168.128.101 192.168.128.102-c.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
On Linux systems Device Mapper, multipath drivers are required for multipath support.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Coexistence of several Linux multi-path drivers is not supported. When using a Dell EMC PowerVault MD3200 or MD3600 series array with Linux host servers, only the Linux Device Mapper failover driver is supported.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Virtual disks on Dell EMC PowerVault MD Series storage arrays cannot be used for booting.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Disk Groups can be migrated between a Dell EMC PowerVault MD3260/3260i/3660i/3660f by following the appropriate disk group migration procedure.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Maximum size of a virtual disk in a dynamic disk pool is 64 TB.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Disk pools cannot be migrated.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Maximum disk space per array for dynamic disk pooling.	1024 TB	256 TB	256 TB	1024 TB
Maximum SSD cache size allowed depends on the installed RAM per controller: 2 GB RAM per controller supports up to 2 TB SSD read cache 4 GB RAM per controller supports up to 4 TB SSD read cache	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
All iSCSI Host ports on a controller have to be at the same port speed.	N/A	Only 1 Gbps Supported	Yes	N/A
iSCSI Host ports will only auto-negotiate to the port speed set in MDSM.	N/A	Only 1 Gbps Supported	Yes	N/A
If the iSCSI initiators are connected to Dell EMC PowerVault MD3200i and/or MD3600i series through the network switches, ensure that your switches support IEEE 802.3x flow control, and the flow control is enabled for both sending and receiving on all switch ports and server NIC ports. If you do not enable the flow control, your iSCSI storage array may experience the degradation of the I/O performance. Alongside enabling the Ethernet IEEE 802.3x flow control, Dell EMC recommends that you disable unicast broadcast storm control on the switch ports connected to the iSCSI initiators and target arrays and turn on the "PortFast" mode of the spanning tree protocol (STP) on the switch ports connected to the iSCSI initiators and target arrays. Note that turning on the "PortFast" mode is different from turning off the whole operation of STP on the switch. With "PortFast" on, the STP is still enabled on the switch ports. Turning STP off may affect the entire network and can leave the network vulnerable to physical topology loops.	N/A	Yes	Yes	N/A
For optimal I/O performance, avoid having more than one iSCSI session originating from one host iSCSI port to the same controller. Ideally, connect the iSCSI host NIC to only one iSCSI target port on the storage subsystem.	N/A	Yes	Yes	N/A
For Dell EMC-Oracle tested and validated solutions on the Dell EMC PowerVault MD arrays, visit the following site: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-solutions/w/oracle_solutions/1429.compatibility-matrices-and-validated-reference-architectures.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
The number of VD copies is limited to a maximum of 511 with a maximum of 8 concurrent copies (applicable to RAID controller firmware version 07.84.xx.xx)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Remote Replication is not supported in simplex mode.	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes
Maximum number of iSCSI sessions.	N/A	192 per port	448 per port	N/A
Online Physical Disk Firmware Upgrade is supported.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
When using physical disks of 6 TB or larger capacity, it is recommended to use either a RAID 6 Disk Group or a Dynamic Disk Pool (DDP). Due to the increased amount of time taken to reconstruct and copy-back, the chances for a second drive failure increases on either a RAID 1/10 or a RAID 5 Disk Group.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Table 2. Dell EMC PowerVault MD-Series storage array rules for non-dense, 2U models only (MD3200, MD3220, MD3200i, MD3220i, MD3600i, MD3620i, MD3600f and MD3620f) . This table describes the Dell EMC PowerVault MD Series storage array rules for or non-dense 2U models.
Rule	Dell EMC PowerVault MD3200 series	Dell EMC PowerVault MD3200i series	Dell EMC PowerVault MD3600i series	Dell EMC PowerVault MD3600f series
	6 Gbps SAS	1 Gbps iSCSI	10 Gbps iSCSI	8 Gbps Fibre Channel
Support for up to 120 physical disk drive slots (system default configuration). You can attach up to nine Dell EMC MD1200 and/or MD1220 series expansion enclosures to a Dell EMC PowerVault MD storage array. Any mixture of MD1200 and MD1220 enclosures supports up to 120 physical slots.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Support for up to 192 physical slots through a premium feature option. You can attach up to 15 Dell EMC MD1200 and/or MD1220 series expansion enclosures to a Dell EMC PowerVault MD storage array. Any mixture of MD1200 and MD1220 enclosures for a total of 192 physical slots is supported.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Maximum number of physical disk drives in a RAID5 or RAID6 disk group is 30. There is no limitation with RAID0 and RAID10 disk groups.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Attached MD1200 series expansion enclosures must be run in unified mode.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
The number of snapshots pre 07.84.xx.xx controller firmware is limited to: Maximum of 256 snapshots per array Maximum of 16 per VD	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
The number of remote replicas (legacy) is limited to maximum of 16 pairs.	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes
The number of snapshots starting with 07.84.xx.xx controller firmware code is limited to: Maximum of 512 snapshots per array Maximum of 128 snapshots per VD Maximum of 32 snapshots per snapshot group	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
The number of remote replicas is limited to the maximum of 32 for each array.	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes

Table 3. Dell EMC PowerVault MD-Series storage array rules for dense, 4U models only . This table describes the Dell EMC PowerVault MD Series storage array rules for dense 4U models.
Rule	MD3260 series	MD3260i series	MD3660i series	MD3660f series
	6 Gbps SAS	1 Gbps iSCSI	10 Gbps iSCSI	8 Gbps Fibre Channel
Support for up to 120 physical disk drive slots (system default configuration). You can attach one Dell EMC MD3060e enclosure to a Dell EMC PowerVault MD dense storage array.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Support for up to 180 physical slots through a premium feature option. You can attach up to two Dell EMC MD3060e enclosures to a Dell EMC PowerVault MD dense storage array, for a total of 180 physical slots.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Maximum number of physical disk drives in a RAID5 or RAID6 disk group is 30. There is no limitation with RAID0 and RAID10 disk groups.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
A minimum of 20 SAS HDDs or SSDs are required in each MD3x60 enclosure (4 in front of each drawer)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes