Users Guide

Contents
1 Introduction........................................................................................................... 5
2 Terminology...........................................................................................................6
3 Hardware best practices......................................................................................7
SMB client servers..................................................................................................................................7
Recommended switches.......................................................................................................................7
Storage................................................................................................................................................... 7
Rack requirements................................................................................................................................ 8
4 Networking best practices ...............................................................................10
IP address requirements......................................................................................................................10
Subnet requirements...........................................................................................................................10
Network Interface Cards......................................................................................................................11
Remote Direct Memory Access...........................................................................................................11
5 Windows Server 2012 R2 best practices.........................................................12
MPIO configuration............................................................................................................................. 12
Windows Server 2012 R2 SMB considerations................................................................................... 12
UNMAP command...............................................................................................................................13
Configuring Windows Server updates................................................................................................ 13
6 Storage Spaces best practices..........................................................................14
Storage pools.......................................................................................................................................14
Configuring storage pools for rebuilds.............................................................................................. 14
Virtual disks (Storage Spaces)..............................................................................................................15
Column count......................................................................................................................................17
Interleave size......................................................................................................................................20
Storage tiers.........................................................................................................................................21
Enclosure awareness...........................................................................................................................25
Write-back cache................................................................................................................................26
Journal disks........................................................................................................................................26
Adding disk space to a storage pool...................................................................................................27
7 Cluster best practices........................................................................................ 29
Cluster shared volumes...................................................................................................................... 29
Cluster shared volumes cache........................................................................................................... 29
Cluster quorum...................................................................................................................................30
3