Replibit - Determine Hardware for a Replibit Install

Replibit does not require you to purchase proprietary hardware. You can choose your own hardware if it meets the minimum hardware requirements; however, the hardware you choose must be compatible with Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus). Current versions of Replibit ship an updated kernel, so please consult the Ubuntu 16.04 compatibility column in the following links. 

The following links will assist you in determining whether or not the hardware you want to use will support Linux.

• www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop
• www.ubuntu.com/certification/server
• For individual components, like NICs or HBA controllers, visit www.ubuntu.com/certification/catalog

Replibit Recommended Minimum Hardware Configuration:

OS: 8GB RAM, 4 Cores minimum recommended for 1-5 protected systems

Backing up more than 5 Servers:

• For every additional 5 Protected Systems (production servers being backed up), Replibit requires 4 more GB's RAM and 2 more cores.
• Example: To backup 6-10 servers, Replibit requires a minimum of 12 GB RAM and 6 cores.

Add the additional memory needed to support running the protected systems as virtual machines.

• Example: 2 protected systems that normally run with 4GB of RAM would need the standard 8GB of RAM plus 8GB of RAM for virtualization so a total of 16GB. 
• It is highly recommended to use ECC RAM for data protection and performance.

Machine must have at least three hard drives:

 Three physical hard drives are required as a minimum: 

• One drive must be dedicated to the operating system. A minimum of 100 GBs is needed for the OS drive, but use of a 256 GB M.2 is recommended. NVMe is supported with Replibit v8.2.3 and above
• The remaining two or more drives must be used for storage in a RAID1, RAID5 or RAID6 set.
• Replibit uses a software RAID. If your BDR has a hardware RAID controller it must be set to a RAID0 or JBOD configuration. Some RAID controllers may not be supported.

Note:  SMR-based hard drives are not suitable as Replibit storage devices.

Shingled magnetic recording (SMR) is a hard drive storage technology that improves data density and storage capacity on disk, at the expense of write performance.  SMR drives achieve high storage density by overlapping tracks of data slightly on top of neighboring tracks.  The underlying storage mechanism writes entire tracks in a high density fashion that is not conducive to the random write patterns associated with the native copy-on-write functionality of ZFS.  Severe performance limitations have been observed with Replibit when employing SMR based hard drives, and these storage devices are not recommended for use with the product.

If you intend to use virtualization for instant recovery:

• Processor must support hardware assisted virtualization
  • Intel VT
  • AMD-V
  • Intel processors significantly outperform AMD

• Include Additional RAM and CPU cores for running virtual machines
  • Minimum total memory required to enable BootVM checks is 10GB

The Software/Hardware RAID controllers available onboard some motherboards are not supported by Linux and can be used only in IDE/SATA mode.

Unless you are using SAN storage, it is recommended to use the Software RAID provided by the Appliance rather than a Hardware RAID controller. ZFS Software RAID is more robust than hardware RAID. Alerting for faulted disks, and failed disk replacement are not supported within the Replibit GUI when using hardware RAID.

It is highly recommended to install the Replibit Appliance software on bare metal for the best performance and reliability when backing up and recovering your customer’s protected systems.