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BP1024 Scaling and Best Practices for Virtual Workload Environments with the FS7500 3
By default, a group provides a single pool of storage. If there are multiple members, group
space can be divide into different storage pools and then members assigned to each.
Pools help organize storage according to application usage and provide a way to allocate
resources, from a single-system management view.
EqualLogic Volume
Volumes are created to access storage space in a pool and are mounted on host operating
systems as physical drives. Volume size and attributes can be modified on-demand.
NAS Service
A NAS service provides support for NAS file system in a PS Series group. UNIX and
Windows clients view a NAS service as one virtual file server, hosting multiple CIFS shares
and NFS exports.
A NAS service requires at least one EqualLogic FS7500 hardware configuration. The
EqualLogic FS7500 includes the following components :
- Two FS7500 Controller (NAS Controller) units with pre-installed file serving
software
- One FS7500 Backup Power Supply System (BPS) unit
NAS Reserve
When a NAS service is configured, a portion of a single storage pool’s space is allocated to
the NAS reserve. As part of the service configuration, the NAS reserve is configured with
Dell Fluid File System (FluidFS), which is a high-performance, highly-scalable file system.
The NAS reserve is used to store the following:
- Internal operation data. Each node pair requires 250 GB of space
- NAS client data
NAS Volumes
The NAS reserve consists of NAS volumes in the storage pool selected for the NAS
reserve. The number of NAS volumes depends on the NAS reserve size.
NAS File System
To provision NAS storage, multiple NAS file systems are created in a NAS service. In a file
system, multiple CIFS shares and NFS exports can be created. Access to shares and exports
is through NAS service IP address.
NAS Service IP address
Clients connect to file systems through a single or multiple NAS service IP address (virtual
IP address), providing a single-system view of the NAS storage environment.