IBM Flex System Storage Expansion Node 68Y8588 User Manual

IBM Flex System Storage Expansion Node

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Support for up to 64 virtual drives, up to 128 drive groups, up to 16 virtual drives per one drive group, 

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and up to 32 physical drives per one drive group

Support for logical unit number (LUN) sizes up to 64 TB

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Configurable stripe size up to 1 MB

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Compliant with Disk Data Format (DDF) configuration on disk (COD)

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S.M.A.R.T. support

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Managed through the IMMv2 management processor on the compute node and with the MegaRAID 

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Storage Manager management software

Architecture

Figure 2 shows the architecture of the Storage Expansion Node when connected to a compute node.

Figure 2. Architecture of the Storage Expansion Node

The Expansion Node connects to a standard-width compute node using the interposer cable, which plugs 

into the expansion connector on the compute node. This link forms a PCIe 3.0 x8 connection between 
Processor 2 on the compute node and the LSI RAID controller in the Expansion Node. The result is that 
the compute node sees the disks in the expansion node as locally attached. Management of the Storage 
Expansion Node is via the IMM2 located on the compute node.

Note: The expansion connector in the x220 and x240 compute nodes is routed through processor 2. 

Therefore, processor 2 must be installed in the compute node.