IBM ESS 3000, Hardware Planning And Installation Manual

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Chapter 2. Technical overview
The technical overview topics provide information about the major concepts of the IBM Elastic Storage
System 3000.
This chapter is for both customers and IBM Service Support Representative (SSR).
System overview
IBM Elastic Storage System 3000 is an all-Flash array platform. This storage platform uses NVMe-
attached drives in ESS 3000 to provide significant performance improvements as compared to SAS-
attached flash drives.
Elastic Storage System 3000 can contain up to 24 NVMe-attached SSD drives, 12 drives (half populated)
or 24 drives (fully populated). The drives are accessible from the front of ESS 3000, as shown in Figure 1
on page 15.
Note: The minimum number of drives is 12. In a 12-drive configuration, drives must be plugged into slots
1 - 6 and then 13 - 18.
Figure 1. Front view of ESS 3000
Each Elastic Storage System 3000 contains two identical I/O server canisters. As Figure 2 on page 15
shows, the top I/O server canister is inverted above the bottom one; each server canister is connected to
power supply units mounted on either side of the canister.
Figure 2. Rear view of ESS 3000
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