VxRail scale-out clusters start with as few as three nodes and can grow in one-node increments up to 64 nodes, providing performance and capacity to meet a wide range of use cases. Two node VxRail clusters are supported but cannot be expanded at this time. New systems can be added non-disruptively and different models can be mixed within a VxRail cluster. Flexible storage options also allow a node to start with a few drives and add drives as capacity requirements grow, as shown in the following figure. Single node upgrades and drive scalability protect an optimized initial investment by allowing customers to start with what they need and expand the VxRail cluster by adding nodes and/or drives to increase performance and capacity as needed. Consult the Dell EMC representative for assistance.
Figure 18. VxRail scale on demand
A few basic rules regarding scaling are worth considering for planning:
Balance
Flexibility
With VxRail, nodes can upgrade or add memory, NIC cards, cache drives, and capacity drives. GPU can be upgraded or added in the E and V Series. It is not possible to upgrade from a single processor to a dual processor VxRail node. It is not possible to upgrade from all-flash to all-NVMe. See the following table for information about which components are customer installable (replaceable).
Table 2. VxRail hardware component replacement list
Hardware Component |
Customer Replaceable Unit (CRU) |
Field Replaceable Unit (FRU) |
System Memory |
Y |
|
Hard Drive |
Y |
|
Solid State Drive (cache and capacity) |
Y |
|
NVMe Cache Drive |
Y |
|
Intel Optane Drive |
Y |
|
PCIe Network Interface Cards |
Y |
|
Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) |
Y |
|
Micro SDHC Card |
Y |
|
Power Supply |
Y |
|
Processors |
|
Y |
System Motherboard |
|
Y |
Host Bus Adapter (HBA330) |
Y |
|
BOSS controller card and M.2 SATA disk |
|
Y |
Network Daughter Card (NDC) |
|
Y |