Dell PowerVault ME5 Series Administrator's Guide

System configuration limits

The following table lists the system configuration limits for ME5 Series storage systems:

Table 1. ME5 Series system configuration limits
Feature	Value
Enclosures and disks
Maximum enclosures and disks per system	Supported configurations: 2U12 controller enclosure + nine 2U12 expansion enclosures = 120 2U12 controller enclosure + nine 2U24 expansion enclosures = 228 2U12 controller enclosure + three 5U84 expansion enclosures = 264 2U24 controller enclosure + nine 2U12 expansion enclosures = 132 2U24 controller enclosure + nine 2U24 expansion enclosures = 240 2U24 controller enclosure + three 5U84 expansion enclosures = 276 5U84 controller enclosure + three 5U84 expansion enclosures = 336
Disk groups and pools
Storage model	Virtual, Linear (mutually exclusive)
Maximum virtual pools per controller module	1
Maximum usable virtual pool size	4016 TiB (4 PB)
Maximum non-ADAPT disk-group	4016 TiB (4 PB)
Maximum disk groups per pool	16
Maximum virtual disk groups per controller module	16
Maximum linear disk groups per controller module	32
Minimum/maximum disks per virtual disk group	NRAID (non-RAID): 1/1 (read cache only) RAID 0: 2/2 (read cache only) RAID 1: 2/2 RAID 5: 3/16 RAID 6: 4/16 RAID 10: 4/16 ADAPT: 12/128
Minimum/maximum disks per linear disk group	RAID 0: 2/16 RAID 1: 2/2 RAID 5: 3/16 RAID 6: 4/16 RAID 10: 4/16 ADAPT:12/128
Maximum dedicated spares per linear disk group	4
Maximum global spares per system	64
Maximum ADAPT groups per controller module	4
Maximum ADAPT single disk size	64 TiB
Maximum ADAPT disk group size	1.5 PiB
ADAPT stripe width (data+parity)	8+2, 16+2
Volumes, initiators, hosts, and mapping
Maximum virtual volumes per system	1024
Maximum linear volumes per system	1024 (512 recommended)
Maximum linear volume (LUN) size	Only limited by 64-bit addressing, so 8 ZiB with 512-byte sectors
Maximum virtual volume (LUN) size	128 TiB
Maximum mappable volumes (LUNs) per disk group	128
Maximum mappable virtual volumes (LUNs) per pool	512
Maximum mappable linear volumes (LUNs) per pool	128
Maximum mappable volumes (LUNs) per controller module	512
Maximum virtual volumes per pool	1024 (512 base volumes and 512 snapshots)
Maximum linear volumes per pool	1024
Maximum virtual volumes per volume group	1024
Maximum volume groups per system	256
Maximum volumes per replication volume group	16
Maximum initiators per controller module	4096
Maximum initiators per system	8192
Maximum initiators per volume	128
Maximum initiators per host	128
Maximum hosts per host group	256
Maximum host groups per system	32
Maximum commands per LUN (preferred path)	1024 per port
Maximum queue depth per host port	1024
Maximum FC host-port link speed	32 Gb
Maximum iSCSI host-port link speed	25 Gb
Maximum SAS host-port link speed	12 Gb
Virtual volume snapshots
Maximum snapshots per system, with a license	Not applicable
Maximum snapshots per pool (net usable)	512
Maximum base volumes per system	1024
Maximum base snapshots per base volume	254 in the volume snapshot tree
Maximum mappable snapshots per system	1024
Virtual volume replication
Maximum number of peer connections per system	4
Maximum number of replicated volumes per system	32
Maximum number of replication sets for a volume	1
Maximum number of volumes for a replicated volume group	16, if no other volumes belong to a replication set
Minimum replication schedule interval	30 minutes
Miscellaneous
Maximum SCSI reservations per system	1024
Maximum SCSI reservations per LUN	1
Maximum SCSI registrations per system	32768
Maximum SCSI reservations per virtual LUN	4096
Maximum SCSI reservations per linear LUN	FC: 85 iSCSI: 85-128 depending on IQN length SAS: 85