Supermicro MicroBlade MBI-6119G-T7LX, User Manual

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3-7
Chapter 3: Setup and Installation
3-5 Hard Disk Drive Installation
A single SATA3 HDD/SSD can be installed in the MicroBlade module for each node (up
to two nodes/drives total for MBI-6219G-T7LX MicroBlade module) and cannot be
removed or replaced without powering down the blade unit they reside in. A blade
module needs a hard disk drive with an operating system installed to operate.
Additionally, two (2) M.2 are available that can be used for connection to SSD drives for
storage or for installation of the node’s operating system per node.
3-6 Installing the Operating System
An operating system (OS) must be installed on each MicroBlade module. Blades with
Microsoft Windows OS and blades with Linux OS can both occupy and operate within
the same blade enclosure. Refer to the SuperMicro web site for a complete list of
supported operating systems.
There are several methods of installing an OS to the blade modules.
Installing with a SATA-DOM Module
The MBI-6219G-T7LX /MBI-6119G-T7LX MicroBlade module contains a SATA-DOM
socket for each node on the serverboard. The operating system can be installed
separately onto the SATA-DOM module, which when plugged into the SATA-DOM
socket of a node of the MBI-6219G-T7LX /MBI-6119G-T7LX MicroBlade module, can be
used as the system’s operating system just as if it was a hard disk drive of the system.
Installing via PXE Boot
PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) is used to boot a computer over a network. To
install the OS via PXE, the following conditions must be met:
1. The PXE B
OOT
option in BIOS must be enabled.
2. A PXE server has been configured (this can be another blade in the system).
3. The PXE server must be connected over a network to the blade to be booted.
4. The blade has only non-partitioned/unformatted hard drives installed and no
bootable devices attached to it.
Once these conditions are met, make sure the PXE server is running. Then turn on the
blade on which you wish to boot and/or install the OS. The BIOS in the blade will look at
all bootable devices and finding none will connect to the PXE server to begin the boot/
install.
Installing via Virtual Media (Drive Redirection)
You can install the OS via Virtual Media through either the IPMIview (Java based client
utility), IPMItool or the Web-based Management Utility . With this method, the OS is
installed from an ISO image that resides on another system/blade.