Setup a 2016 Nano Server for Hyper-V on a Dell Internal Dual SD Module (IDSDM)

THIS IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT
 AND I COULD NOT GET A STABLE SERVER WITH IT
DON'T DO IT!

Here are my notes that I used to get Nano server running on a Dell R730 with SD Cards.
The part number for the Internal Dual SD Module (IDSDM) is PMR79 or 330-BBCN
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-internal-dual-sd-module-card-reader-sd-for-poweredge-r430-r630-r730-r730xd-t430-t630/apd/330-bbcn/storage-drives-media
It has dual 16GB SD Cards Dell DP/N: 037D9D

Preparing your management PC/server (Or install the latest RSAT tools for Build 1607 or newer on Win10)
Install-WindowsFeature -Name RSAT-Hyper-V-Tools, Hyper-V-Tools, Hyper-V-PowerShell, RSAT-Clustering, RSAT-Clustering-MGMT, RSAT-AD-PowerShell -Verbose

You will need the ADK and Nano Server Image Builder.  
There is an intro to the Image builder and links to that and the ADK here:
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/nanoserver/2016/10/15/introducing-the-nano-server-image-builder/

Create your Nano server USB stick so you can install Nano on bare metal.
You can make an ISO for use with a Virtual console like iDrac too.
The first part of the instructions from Dell that were created for TP4 didn't work for me.
Instead I used a combination of the Microsoft Nano Server Image Builder app and the instructions for setting up the boot to SD from the Dell white paper.

The Dell Blog and PDF on booting Nano from Internal Dual SD Module (IDSDM) is here:
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/b/techcenter/archive/2015/11/24/installing-nano-server-on-dell-poweredge-server-internal-dual-sd-module
It's called "Installing Nano Server on Dell PowerEdge Server Internal Dual SD Module"
I skipped the first part and just used the Image Builder instead and then started on page 6 with "Change System Boot Order into IDSDM".

Set VMM as a trusted host
Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts "192.168.xxx.xxx"

Set your management PC/Server as a trusted host
Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts "192.168.xxx.xxx"

Allow ping
Import-Module NetSecurity
New-NetFirewallRule –DisplayName “Allow Ping” –Direction Inbound –Action Allow –Protocol icmpv4 –Enabled True

At this point you can use iDrac to setup your RAID for storing the VM files.

Create a new partition for Hyper-V on your Nano Server VM instance
Get-Disk | Where partitionstyle -eq ‘raw’ | Initialize-Disk -PartitionStyle GPT -PassThru | New-Partition -AssignDriveLetter -UseMaximumSize

I had two RAID 10 Virtual Disks to setup, so I had to break it out by drive letter.
Find out what disk number to format before you run the next commands! 
Get-Disk
Get-Partition | where DriveLetter -eq "G" | Format-Volume -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel “data” -Confirm:$false
Get-Partition | where DriveLetter -eq "F" | Format-Volume -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel “backup” -Confirm:$false

**ReFS is currently not supported on Nano, so we are using NTFS**
Traditional NIC teaming is not supported with Nano.  Server 2016 introduced SET instead.

Get a list of Network adapters
Get-NetAdapter

Create a Teamed vmSwitch with SET for Nano
New-VMSwitch -Name vNICset -NetAdapterName NIC1, NIC2 -EnableEmbeddedTeaming $true 

You should see the Virtual Teamed NIC in Hyper-V now.
Turn on VMQ for the NICs in the driver settings - ONLY on 10GB NICs

Comments

Unknown said…
Hi Ed,

I assume this would also work with the full Server 16 os including gui?
Unknown said…
Hi Ed,


I assume this would also work with the full Server 16 edition including GUI/Desktop experience?
Ed Hammond said…
The full GUI is not supported on SD cards. Core is not either. They are too large.

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