Hardware
Choosing the right hardware is an important step in planning your Gallium Edge deployment. This page covers the component requirements for a single Edge hypervisor and Gallium's hardware support policy.
System Requirements
An Edge hypervisor must meet the minimum requirements listed below.
| Resource | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | 4 GB | 16 GB ECC |
| CPU | Single-socket, 2 cores | Single-socket, 4 cores or more |
| Storage Disks | 1 × 120GB SSD (Single Disk) | 2 × matched SSD or NVMe (Mirror) |
2 GB of memory is reserved for the Gallium services that run on the hypervisor. Size the hypervisors's memory as the total of that reservation plus the memory you intend to assign to your virtual machines.
System Components
Storage Disks
Edge stores everything on a single Storage Pool: the operating system, all hypervisor metadata, and your virtual machine data all live on the same disks. There is no separate system disk. Because the Storage Pool underpins the whole hypervisor, creating it is the first task you perform on a new server.
You can build the Storage Pool in one of two layouts:
- Mirror: two disks of matching size, with every write copied to both. If one disk fails the hypervisor keeps running on the survivor, giving you full redundancy. This is the recommended layout.
- Single Disk: one disk with no redundancy. This is suitable for evaluation or workloads where the data is protected elsewhere, but a disk failure takes the hypervisor offline and loses its data.
For a Mirror, use two disks of the same size. SSD or NVMe drives with an onboard DRAM cache are strongly recommended for both layouts.
Because the operating system, metadata, and VM data all share the Storage Pool, spinning HDDs are a poor fit for an Edge hypervisor. Heavy VM I/O will saturate a mechanical disk and will impact performance of the the whole hypervisor. Use SSD or NVMe.
If you require large capacity storage across a fleet of Edge hypervisor's for applications such as video recording or data processing please contact support to discuss options.
For more detail on how the pool is structured, see Storage.
Boot Media
This section applies only to Edge 2024.2 and earlier. Edge 2026.1 replaced boot media with bootstrap media, an install-only mechanism, and now runs the operating system from the Storage Pool. See Installing Gallium Edge.
On Edge versions prior to 2026.1 the hypervisor requires boot media: a durable device that holds the operating system and must remain in the server for the machine to boot. It can be a USB drive, an SD card, or onboard storage. Because it runs the live system, its size and reliability matter. On these versions do not remove its boot media while the hypervisor is running.
Storage Adapters
HBA (Host Bus Adapter) controllers, or controllers placed in IT mode, are preferred. Gallium provides redundancy in software so hardware RAID provides no benefit.
Network Adapters
Use server-grade network adapters. Intel NICs are recommended for best compatibility. A single adapter is enough for most scenarios.
Thunderbolt and USB network adapters are excluded.
IPMI
Gallium Edge leverages that platform's IPMI for fan, power supply, and system component monitoring. Hardware with an IPMI is recommended for this reason.
Support Life
Gallium ends support for a device when the vendor reaches end-of-life (EOL) for that product.