Server and Infrastructure Engineering
Direct from Development
Dell PowerEdge Boot Optimized
Storage Solution – BOSS-S2
Introduction
Tech Note by
New for the Dell PowerEdge R6525 & R7525 and future servers, the Boot
Jeff Armstrong - Sr. Product Optimized Storage Solution (BOSS-S2) provides key, generational
Planner, PowerEdge Servers feature improvements to the existing value proposition and highly popular
Abhijit Khande – Sr. Mgr., BOSS-S1. BOSS was originally designed to provide a highly reliable, cost
Systems Development effective solution for segregating operating system boot drives from data
Gobind Vijayakumar – Eng, on server-internal storage. Many customers, particularly those in the
Systems Development Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) arena and those implementing
Praveen Kaveti – Sr. Eng., Software Defined Storage (SDS), require separating their OS drives from
Systems Development data drives, and require hardware RAID mirroring (RAID 1) for their OS
drives. The main motivation for this is to create a server configuration
Summary optimized for application data. Providing a separate, redundant disk
solution for the OS enables a more robust and optimized compute
Our 2nd generation SATA HW platform.
RAID BOSS solution (BOSS-
S2) was enhanced to provide The Boot Optimized Storage Solution (BOSS-S2) is a simple, highly
critical RAS features that reliable and cost-effective solution to meet the requirements of our
include the rear facing drives
customers. The M.2 devices offer the same performance as 2.5” SSDs
on our new rack servers, so a
server does not need to be and support rear facing drive accessibility with full hot-plug support to
taken offline in case of a SSD include Surprise Remove. Our design frees up and maximizes available
failure and full hot-plug support drive slot for data requirements.
for our Enterprise class M.2
SATA SSDs. When operating BOSS-S2 also enables a Secure method to update the Firmware and
a RAID 1 mirror, a surprise prevents any unauthorized threats to the firmware. The firmware payload
removal and addition of a new
SSD will automatically kickoff a is verified using a cryptographic digital signature, offering a secure update.
rebuild on the new RAID 1 By default, the BOSS-S2 controller state is secure and locked, which is
member SSD that was added unlocked only during the firmware update process. Following the update,
without ever having to halt the the controller automatically returns to the default, locked state to prevent
operations. any unauthorized updates to the firmware.
Available on PowerEdge YX5X
Managing BOSS-S2 is accomplished with standard, well-known
systems, BOSS-S2 is a robust,
redundant, low-cost solution management tools such as iDRAC, OpenManage Systems Administrator
for boot optimization. (OMSA), and Command Line Interface (CLI).
Copyright © 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved.
Dell and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries
Copyright © 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved.
Dell and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries
Key features of BOSS-S2
Figure 1: Rear view of the system
• Supports One (1) or Two (2) 80 mm M.2 Enterprise Class SATA SSDs
• M.2 devices are read-intensive (1 DWPD) with 240 GB or 480 GB capacity
• Fixed function hardware RAID 1 (mirroring) or pass-through
• Rear facing module for quick and easy accessibility to the M.2 SSDs
• Full Hot-Plug support
• M.2 drive LED functionality
• Managing BOSS-S2 is accomplished with standard, well-known management tools such as iDRAC,
OpenManage Systems Administrator (OMSA), and Command Line Interface (CLI).
Conclusion
For more information on BOSS-S2 User’s Guide, see https://dl.dell.com/topicspdf/boss-s2_ug_en-us.pdf
For general information on iDRAC User’s Guide, see https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/idrachaloug_en-us.pdf
For general information on iDRAC 4.30.30.30 Release notes, see https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/idrac9-
lifecycle-controller-v4x-series_release-notes43_en-us.pdf
For general information on OMSA 9.5 User’s Guide, see https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/openmanage-server-
administrator-v95_users-guide_en-us.pdf
PowerEdge DfD Repository Contact Us Follow Us
For more technical learning For feedback and requests For PowerEdge news
Copyright © 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved.
Dell and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries
