Its like any san shelf, you can run it fine with just one host connected to it and whatever drives/distro.
To actualy split it across 2 hosts you need DP(Dual Port) drives and not just a regular distro.
There is a reason for this type of boxes getting dumped at a low price.
You get one host with a high drive capacity with very limited io/expansion and a 2nd node even more limited without drives.
With a cooling scaled for 800-1000w using more than a regular server would by itself.
As much as i find them somewhat interesting, its the type of hardware that i would not run even if i got it for free.
Tho for free id probably take one to gut it and try converting it into a pure shelf.
The more I do I read on this box, the more it is different than that.
For example, it uses an LSI Expander chip. And the manual talks about assigning disk groups and what nodes they are assigned to.
Hardcoded placeholder description!
www.cisco.com
You shouldn't have to use purely dual-port drives with the LSI expanders like this. I have an LSI Expander chip in the Supermicro 2U dual-node X9 chassis here.
If you insert a dual port SAS drive, in the LSI BIOS config on boot, you can assign groups and failover groups for the dual port drive. Yes, there is some custom Windows drivers for it. Ubuntu was supported, but I never looked into it.
However, you can also insert a regular 2.5" SATA drive. Inside the LSI Expander config, you only have the option to assign the disk to a node/group. No splitting the disk.
The point is, you should be able to assign each HDD slot to a specific node. Or, just run one node with 56 drives!
I just counted... Holy smokes. I have 51 drives I could take out of 3 chassis, and slam all into this one box.
And sell the SC846s to cover the costs. So tempting...
Let's see what deal the seller gives on non-frieght shipping.