VMware vSAN on Dell PowerEdge Servers Getting Started Guide

This section provides information on on Dell vSAN Ready Nodes (vSRN) for Original Storage Architecture (OSA) architecture based ReadyNodes. A vSRN is a certified hardware form factor for vSAN deployment, which is recommended by the server OEM and VMware. vSRN is ideal for larger data center environments looking for hyperconverged building blocks for automation. The predefined hardware configuration is certified with specific versions of vSAN and listed in the VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG). Dell provides multiple vSAN ReadyNodes that are built on PowerEdge servers and certified to run different VMware vSAN versions. For more information, see VMware Compatibility Guide for Dell. Each Dell vSRN contains predefined components such as processor, memory, network, storage I/O Controller, HDDs, and SSDs combined with a VMware ESXi certified PowerEdge server. So, multiple ReadyNode options on different performance profiles are available to meet various types of workload requirements. For more information, see vSAN Hardware Quick Reference Guide. To understand the correlation between ESXi builds and vSAN versions, see ESXi-vSAN versioning.

vSRNs contain the following features:

• vSRN are classified into All Flash (AF) and Hybrid (HY) profiles.
  NOTE: The vSRN profile is created based on different design considerations. For more information, see vSAN Hardware Quick Reference Guide.
• AF contains only SSD drives (SAS/SATA/NVMe) that is required for both cache and capacity tier.
• HY vSRNs use HDDs in capacity tier and SSDs in caching tier.
  NOTE: For more information about the components that can be changed in vSRN and the components that are not suitable for vSRN, see VMware blog.

Following are the conditions to replace the drives in vSAN:

• Dell vSRNs are available in multiple profiles to meet various workload requirements. Dell provides NVMe AF ReadyNodes that have high-performance NVMe drives used in cache and capacity tiers.
  NOTE: Dell offers vSAN with NVMe All Flash vSRNs configuration and the cache and capacity tiers that are configured with high-performance NVMe drives.
• Drives that are part of cache tier and capacity tier can be replaced with the drives having increased capacity size, performance class, and endurance class. Ensure that the drives that are selected for replacements are listed in VCG.
• VMware and Dell recommend that you use a homogenous vSAN cluster.
  NOTE: If you want to replace the drive with a different model, ensure that the previous condition is satisfied. However, you may face performance issues when you replace the drive with a different model.
• When the capacity tier drive is replaced with a higher capacity drive, the overall size of vSAN increases accordingly.