Azure Getting Started - System Requirements
SoftNAS® System Requirements
Listed below is a table to assist with setup decisions during the configuration required to accomplish various tasks and goals.
| Recommended | Configuration Note |
Compute | Any virtual machine selected must have a minimum of 4 vCPUs. | |
Small Workloads | D8v3 | Limited performance and functions. Advanced capabilities such as SnapReplicate and SNAP HATM are not available. |
Medium Workloads | D16v3
|
|
Heavier Workloads | D32v3 |
|
Memory |
| |
Base RAM - Light | 16 GB | Minimum recommended for advanced features such as SnapReplicate and SNAP HATM |
Base RAM - Medium | 32 GB | Premium or Standard storage |
Base RAM - Heavier | 114 GB | Local SSD, large-scale use with increased RAM caching, premium or standard storage |
Additional RAM | 16GB, plus 1 GB per 1 TB of deduplicated storage. | Recommended for best performance |
| e.g.: 50 TB deduplicated storage = 50 additional GB for deduplication tables for best performance. | |
Storage |
| |
Boot Disk | 256 GB Hard disk for Linux boot and system disk (included) |
|
Data Disk - General | Standard Azure Data Disks (DS Standard Series) |
|
High IOPS | Azure Premium Storage (DSv2 Standard Series) |
|
RAID 10 | Recommended for I/O-intensive applications and databases |
|
RAID 5/6 | Recommended for best space utilization (tradeoff: slower write performance) |
|
Network |
| |
Up to 120 MB/sec - 1GbE | Less overhead cost |
|
500+ MB/sec - 10 GbE | Better performance (requires more resources) | Consider MTU 4000 configuration for optimal performance |
SoftNAS® System Capacities
Listed below is a table representing the capabilities of the SoftNAS® for Microsoft Azure.
| SoftNAS® Capacity | Configuration Note |
Offers |
| |
SoftNAS® | 16 PB | Available as Azure subscription and BYOL from SoftNAS. |
Memory |
|
|
RAM Cache | 16 GB to 100 GB | Defaults to 50% total RAM for read cache |
SSD Cache | low-speed level 2 cache | Optional |
Ephemeral Cache | low-speed level 2 cache | Optional for read cache |
Storage |
| |
Maximum Storage | 16 TB/16PB | 16 TB - Maximum usable block storage capacity on Azure Marketplace, contingent on instance type. |
Number of Storage Pools | Unlimited |
|
Number of Volumes | Unlimited |
|
Number of Snapshots | Unlimited |
|
Number of Snapshot Clones | Unlimited |
|
SnapReplicate | Unlimited Pools & Volumes |
|
SnapReplicate Throttle | 56Kb/sec to Unlimited bandwidth |
|
Active Directory | Kerberos Integration |
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Files and Directories | Unlimited |
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Network |
| |
Schedules | Unlimited |
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NFS Exports: | Linux Default |
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iSCSI Targets | Linux Default |
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CIFS Shares | Linux Default |
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Firewall Ports: | 22 (ssh), 443 (https) | Plus NFS, iSCSI, and CIFS as required |
Firewalld | on by default | Firewall ports required may vary by use case. Lift and Shift deployments will require additional configuration, as will deployments using NFSv3, for example. For more information see Managing Firewall. |