Windows2016

Windows 2016 server - Storage spaces Direct - Hyper converged install

• Install windows server 2016 Datacenter either with GUI or without. In this example i did with GUI but apparently you can use server core without issue. Not sure if you can use nano server. (Storage spaces direct is a Datacenter feature, this will not work or be licensed in anything less. For example Standard)

• Install hardware drivers and fully update OS. Make sure every node has the same update level otherwise cluster manager will complain. Plus network drivers will be required to get RDMA working (Storage spaces direct cannot function without RDMA)

• Tagged vlan will be required for RDMA. For my example i set a VLAN of 12 on the super micro switch on every port that its required and this is set to tagged. You can do this in the GUI or CLI of the swtich.

• Every node will need certain services. these can be installed using:

Install-WindowsFeature -Name File-Services Install-WindowsFeature -Name Failover-Clustering -IncludeManagementTools Install-WindowsFeature -Name Hyper-V -IncludeManagementTools -Restart