The discussion around Windows or Linux can be religious. As can be the discussion around which platform to use whether it be Intel or AMD. Qualifier: We’ve been in the System Builder Channel since the late 1990s. Intel System Builder When we started MPECS in 2003 we were an all […]
S2D
15 posts
This one was like finding a needle in the haystack as the Veeam forums had no mention of the actual fix for the following error: Failed to create snapshot (Microsoft CSV Shadow Copy Provider) (mode: Hyper-V child partition snapshot) Details: Writer ‘Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer’ is failed at ‘VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_SNAPSHOT’. The […]
We’re in a pickle and things are really stressful. Documentation is lacking so who wants to jump into a cluster troubleshooting situation when all we see is: C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1 C:\ClusterStorage\Volume2 ETC ETC In a busy cluster environment the number of CSV folders can be quite large. What we do is once […]
We are setting up a new 2-node AMD EPYC Rome S2D (Storage Spaces Direct) cluster and hit a bit of a snag with the new version of RUFUS that lists the following options when formatting the drive: Windows 11 with TPM/SecureBoot Windows 11 without TPM/SecureBoot Our cluster nodes refused to […]
There are many ways one can go about setting up the networking for an Azure Stack HCI (ASHCI)/Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) cluster. TL;DR Our rule of thumb is to start with four 25GbE ports via two network adapters for multiple nodes requiring switches or even in smaller […]
This is what one of our Proof-of-Concept (PoC) rack enclosures looked like before we were finished buttoning things up: Four Node Storage Spaces Direct Cluster with Mellanox 40GbE RoCE Fabric In the end, we did a decent job of wrapping and coiling the massive 40GbE cables and the 250V PDU […]
Server and workstation boards have had SlimSAS 8x connectors for dual NVMe drive setups for quite a long time now. ASRock Rack EPC621D6U-2T16R (BTO Board) The SlimSAS SFF-8654 connector is to the right of the PCIe x16 slot. When they started appearing on server and workstation boards, we began trying […]
We took some time today to add the following PowerShell Guide to our repository: New-VM Template: Gen2 SecureBoot Linux We ran into a snag installing the latest Ubuntu Server software with the .ISO refusing to boot unless we turned SecureBoot off. As it turns out, thanks to a pointer from […]
This process may be needed as the cluster grows due to the Health Service creating a somewhat small disk to start with. The following PowerShell will expand the Cluster Performance History Cluster Disk as the initial configured size may not be enough down the road. Variables to change: $VDNewSize = […]
While it’s great to look to an all NVMe deployment as the ideal the budgetary side of things can put a constraint on the configuration we deploy. No matter if we’re deploying a cache to capacity solution with SATA SSD for cache to spinning rust for capacity or NVMe for […]