Best Practices Dell EMC SC Series: Microsoft Windows Server Best Practices Abstract This document provides best practices for configuring Microsoft® Windows Server® to perform optimally with Dell EMC™ SC Series storage. June 2019 680-042-007 Revisions Revisions Date Description October 2016 Initial release for Windows Server 2016 November 2016 Update to include BitLocker content February 2017 Update MPIO best practices November 2017 Update guidance on support for Nano Server with Windows Server 2016 June 2019 Update for Windows Server 2019 and SCOS 7.4; template update Acknowledgements Author: Marty Glaser The information in this publication is provided “as is.” Dell Inc. makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. Copyright © 2016–2019 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners. [5/29/2019] [Best Practices] [680-042-007] 2 Dell EMC SC Series: Microsoft Windows Server Best Practices | 680-042-007 Table of contents Table of contents Revisions............................................................................................................................................................................. 2 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................................. 2 Table of contents ................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Executive summary ............................................................................................................................................................. 5 Audience ............................................................................................................................................................................. 5 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................... 6 1.1 SC Series overview ............................................................................................................................................ 6 1.2 Windows Server 2019 overview ......................................................................................................................... 7 1.3 SC Series support for previous Windows Server versions ................................................................................. 7 1.4 Advantages of using SC Series storage with Windows Server .......................................................................... 8 1.5 Best practices overview ...................................................................................................................................... 8 1.6 General best practices for Windows Server ....................................................................................................... 9 2 Design best practices ................................................................................................................................................. 10 2.1 Right-size the storage array and fabric ............................................................................................................ 10 2.2 Determine optimal transport and front-end configuration ................................................................................. 11 2.3 Transport options .............................................................................................................................................. 11 2.4 Mixed transports ............................................................................................................................................... 11 2.5 Multipath I/O ..................................................................................................................................................... 13 2.6 Boot-from-SAN ................................................................................................................................................. 13 2.7 Adjust timeout settings for single path and multipath I/O ................................................................................. 14 2.8 Queue depth and timeouts ............................................................................................................................... 14 3 Administration best practices ..................................................................................................................................... 16 3.1 Present SC Series storage to Windows Server ................................................................................................ 16 3.2 SC Series storage profiles ................................................................................................................................ 16 3.3 Data Progression .............................................................................................................................................. 17 3.4 Data reduction (compression and deduplication) ............................................................................................. 17 3.5 Overprovisioning ............................................................................................................................................... 17 3.6 Guest VMs with in-guest iSCSI and virtual Fibre Channel ............................................................................... 18 3.7 SC Series and server clustering ....................................................................................................................... 18 3.8 Optimize format-disk wait time for large volumes ............................................................................................. 19 3.9 Placement of page files .................................................................................................................................... 20 3.10 SC Series snapshots with Windows Server ..................................................................................................... 20 3.11 TRIM/Unmap .................................................................................................................................................... 23 3.12 Volume maintenance ........................................................................................................................................ 24 3 Dell EMC SC Series: Microsoft Windows Server Best Practices | 680-042-007 Table of contents 3.13 Offloaded data transfer ..................................................................................................................................... 26 3.14 Resilient file system .......................................................................................................................................... 26 4 Best practices for specific roles, features, and integrations ....................................................................................... 28 4.1 Failover Clustering ............................................................................................................................................ 28 4.2 Microsoft Hyper-V ............................................................................................................................................. 30 4.3 Cluster shared volumes .................................................................................................................................... 30 4.4 SMI-S ................................................................................................................................................................ 31 4.5 Disaster recovery with Live Volume ................................................................................................................. 31 4.6 Storage Spaces ................................................................................................................................................ 31 4.7 SC Series Replay Manager .............................................................................................................................. 31 4.8 Using BitLocker with SC Series volumes ......................................................................................................... 32 4.9 SC Series and PowerShell SDK ....................................................................................................................... 34 A Technical support and additional resources ............................................................................................................... 35 A.1 Related resources............................................................................................................................................. 35 4 Dell EMC SC Series: Microsoft Windows Server Best Practices | 680-042-007 Executive summary Executive summary This document provides best practice guidance for deploying Microsoft® Windows Server® with Dell EMC™ SC Series™ storage systems. The documentation found at Dell.com/support for your specific SC Series array