SoftNAS® System Requirements

Listed below is a table to assist with the setup decisions during the configuration required to accomplish various tasks and goals.

Specifying Memory and CPU Reservations

Always specify the CPU and Memory reservations for the SoftNAS® VMs to prevent over-commitment of vSphere Server resources.

Over-committing vSphere Server resources without specifying CPU and Memory reservations will cause unwanted HA failovers.

	Recommended	Configuration Note
VMware Version Supported	Version 5.5 and above
Compute	Set a compute reservation for all of the CPU assigned to the SoftNAS® VM.
Small Workloads	4 vCPU	minimum
Medium Workloads	8+ vCPU	recommended, based on use of compression
Heavier Workloads	16+ vCPU	large-scale use with compression and deduplication
Memory	Set a memory reservation for all of the memory assigned for the SoftNAS® VM.
Base RAM - Light	16 GB	minimum
System RAM - Medium	32 GB	medium-scale use
System RAM - Heavy	64+ GB	large-scale use with increased caching
Additional RAM	1 GB per 1 TB of deduplicated storage.	required for best performance
	e.g.: 50 TB deduplicated storage = 50 additional GB for deduplication tables.
Storage
Boot Disk	64-bit Linux CentOS 4/5/6 (64-bit)	100 GB, Thin-provisioned
Data Disks	Virtual Hard Disks (VMDK) for data storage will support any VMware-supported datastore.
Hardware RAID	If the local disk controller supports hardware RAID, hardware RAID can be used to create VMware host datastores.
Software RAID	If SoftNAS® is preferred to handle RAID, add VMDKs to the SoftNAS® VM and configure RAID in the SoftNAS® product.
iSCSI SAN	SoftNAS® can mount and support all VMware-supported disk configurations, including iSCSI SAN via software or hardware HBA.
Networking
Up to 120 MB/sec	1 GbE	minimum
Up to 750 MB/sec	10 GbE	Other VMware-supported networks, such as InfiniBand, are also available.
HA Networking	Active/Active or Active/Passive vSwitch	Required setting for VMware vSphere to tolerate a NIC or switch failure.
	Use of "full mesh" HA switch configurations are also recommended to prevent switch failures from interrupting storage access.
HA Host Failover	Ensure that, for each host operating with SoftNAS®, the Data Disks are accessible. Preferred method: dual-path disks or iSCSI or fiber-attached disks with VMware drivers.

SoftNAS® System Capacities

Listed below is a table representing the capabilities of the SoftNAS® for VMware vSphere.

	SoftNAS® Capacity	Configuration Note
Editions
SoftNAS® BYOL	NA	No capacity limits
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 PB	Maximum usable storage capacity with SoftNAS®, contingent on license.
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
Files and Directories	Unlimited
Network
Schedules	Unlimited
NFS Exports:	Linux Default
iSCSI Targets	Linux Default
CIFS Shares	Linux Default
Firewall Ports	22 (ssh), 443 (https)	Plus NFS, iSCSI, and CIFS as required by network (please refer to Security for additional details
IP Tables Firewall	Off by default	May be configured but is not required. Use an alternative method to set Security Groups unless added firewall protection on a SoftNAS® instance is required.

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