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21 BP1038| Best Practices and Guidelines for Integrating the Dell EqualLogic FS7600 and FS7610 into an Existing SAN
Table 3 Pool configuration best practice summary
Unified workload type
Application Profile
Block Heavy
File Heavy
Small block I/O: OLTP database (SQL, Oracle), e-mail
(Exchange)
Separate Shared
Small file I/O: User home directories, general file share
Large block I/O: Media streaming, Medical Imaging and
records, CAD/CAM. Backup & restore
Separate Shared
Large block I/O: Media streaming, Medical Imaging and
records, CAD/CAM, Backup & restore
Before installing and configuring the FS Series NAS Appliance, the administrator should ensure that there is
adequate storage capacity (free space) in the pool to create NAS volumes as well as adequate I/O capacity.
If there is not enough free space, then additional arrays must be added to the pool. If there is not adequate
I/O capacity to support the new file workload, then the performance of existing block workloads may be
decreased as the storage system is forced to share resources between them.
8.4 Volume configuration
During configuration of an FS7600 or FS7610, the administrator is allowed to choose the pool that the
NAS Reserve (and corresponding volumes) is created in. This can be an existing pool or a new pool
containing at least one array member. All FS Series controller pairs use the same (single) pool and if the
pool is shared with existing block volumes, there must be adequate free space available to create the NAS
Reserve.
A minimum of 250 GB of free disk space in the pool (for the NAS Reserve) is required for each controller
pair and is reserved for the system, so there must also be additional free space (greater than 250GB)
allocated to create a NAS file system. Best practices also dictate that a minimum of 5% of total pool space
be kept free to allow normal volume load balancing and distribution to occur automatically. The amount
of NAS Reserve can be increased at any time (provided there is free pool space) however, once created, it
cannot be decreased in size.
If the minimum required free disk space is not available, then additional arrays must be added to the group
prior to configuring the FS Series NAS appliance. If additional arrays are added to an existing pool which
will be shared by block and file I/O volumes, then it is recommended that the group be allowed time to re-
balance existing block volumes across the newly added array(s) before configuring the FS Series NAS.
Depending on the number of existing arrays and volumes, this operation could take several hours (or
longer if there is active I/O on the SAN). If identical array models (with the same sized disks) are used, the
re-balancing will be complete when each member of the pool contains a similar amount of the existing
volume data.