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Storage Space Direct with Dell PowerEdge R550

Everson Amorim 20 Reputation points
2025-11-13T13:48:23.2166667+00:00

Hello,

I would like to confirm if the configuration below meets the minimum hardware requirements for deploying a 4-node Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) cluster using Windows Server 2022.

Each node is a Dell PowerEdge R550 with the following specifications:

2 × Intel Xeon Silver 4114 (10 cores, 2.0 GHz)

256 GB RAM

1 × PERC RAID Controller

2 × 480 GB SSD Hot Plug

  • 2 × 4 TB HDD SAS Hot Plug

2 × 10/100/1000 NICs

1 × Dual-port 1G/10G SFP network card

I’ve read on Microsoft Docs that each server must have at least two SSDs and at least four additional drives, but I’d like to confirm whether this requirement applies per node or per cluster.

Would this hardware configuration be supported for S2D, or would we need additional drives per server to meet the minimum requirements?

Thank you in advance for any clarification.

Windows for business | Windows Server | Storage high availability | Clustering and high availability
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  1. Nam Bui (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 630 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-11-14T02:25:20.4433333+00:00

    Hi Everson,

    The minimum storage requirements you saw in the Microsoft documentation (at least 2 SSDs and at least 4 additional drives) apply per node, not per cluster.

    With the hardware configuration you listed:

    • 2 × SSD
    • 2 × HDD

    Each server only has 4 drives total, and only 2 of them are HDD, which is below the minimum requirement of:

    • 2 SSD (for cache/performance tier)
    • 4 additional drives per node (HDD or SSD for capacity tier)

    Because of this, the configuration is not supported for S2D, and you would need to add more drives to each server to meet the minimum supported storage layout.

    In short: --> The requirement applies on a per-server basis --> Your nodes do not currently meet the minimum number of drives --> Additional disks are required before S2D can be supported

    If you find this information useful to some extent, please accept the answer so that your experience with the issue would help contribute to the whole community. Thank you :)

    Titus

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