S2D- Moving devices to different PCI-E

Nick_Nilsen 21 Reputation points
2021-03-28T18:40:51.06+00:00

I have a 2 Node S2D cluster up and running for a few months now. I have an NVME HBA with 3 Intel DC P4600 2TB NVME drives as cache on both nodes as well as a dual 10GbE netwrok adapter for VM and storage access there is also a 40GbE network adpater for cluster RDMA comunication and a SAS HBA with 28 3TB HHDs for capacity storage. My question is; can I move devices to different PCI-E slots without reconfiguring everything? I need to move the 10GbE card to a different slot and I would like to remove 1 NVME drive completely as well as moving the remaining 2 to PCI-E x4 to U.2 adapters for cache and add 4 NVME drives to the NVME HBA as a performance teir. Will windows recognise the current NVME drives if they are moved or do I need to retire all 3 NVME drives from each server and then just add them back when I move them? What about the 10GbE network adapter? I also realize I will need to add the new NVME drives that I plan to attach to the HBA manually otherwise they will just become cache drives. Thanks for the help.

Windows Server Clustering
Windows Server Clustering
Windows Server: A family of Microsoft server operating systems that support enterprise-level management, data storage, applications, and communications.Clustering: The grouping of multiple servers in a way that allows them to appear to be a single unit to client computers on a network. Clustering is a means of increasing network capacity, providing live backup in case one of the servers fails, and improving data security.
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  1. JiayaoZhu 3,911 Reputation points
    2021-03-29T09:07:01.947+00:00

    Hi,

    Thank you for your posting!

    Firstly, in view of the 10GbE network adapter, move it to another PCI-E slot will change your IP address and related DNS registery. If you use static IP address, you may have to maunally configure the new IP address while if you use dynamic IP address (enabling DHCP), DHCP will automatically change your IP address. The change in IP address does not necessarily affect your cluster configuration, but you may have to check the traffic transmission among the cluster. Because the change of IP address may lead to the scenario where the receiver in a cluster cannot find the original IP address.

    Therefore, I suggest you could refer to the below document for your confusion:

    https://learn.microsoft.com/zh-cn/troubleshoot/windows-server/high-availability/change-network-adapters-ip-address-cluster-node

    Secondly, in view of moving the remaining 2 NVME drives, you do not necessarily retire them and add them back, S2D will automatically recognize eligible drives and add them to the storage pool. But as you have realized, you are supposed to add the new NVME drives that I plan to attach to the HBA manually.

    More information about S2D storage pool:

    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/storage-at-microsoft/deep-dive-the-storage-pool-in-storage-spaces-direct/ba-p/425959

    Thank you for your time!

    Best regards
    Joann

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