Forlift update | XCP-NG with FreeNas

[dskiller13]

I am looking to move my VM SR off of equallogics (ps6000xv - 16x10k 450gb w/1gb multipath) to a free nas setup with the following specs:
dell r610
2x E5540 @ 2.53GHz
64gb
OS: raid-1 73g SAS 15k
ZFS storage: 4x Seagate 800GB SAS 12Gb/s 2.5" MLC Enterprise SSD
NIC: HP NC550SFP Dual Port 10GbE (using on board 1gb for off band management)

Host are 4 machines:
dell r620
2x E5-2640 @ 2.5Ghz
96GB
OS: single Samsung 840 EVO
NIC: 4 onboard 1gb (1 for management, 3 for SR), 1 PCIE dual 1g (1 VMs, 1 SR), 1 PCIE dual 10gbe (1 VMs, 1 open)
DOM0: modified to 8gb

I have had poor VM performance with the storage pool, HIGH I/O waits in the 1000%+, low IOPS. I hope this will make it better as my test as already shown improvement with freenas and a single 1gb for the SR.

Any help/guidance with pointers or anyone sees some glaring issues with my setup. Support from the xenserver forms has been light and equallogic will not talk to me without a service contract which my units are no EOL.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Yorick]

> OS: raid-1 73g SAS 15k

Fine if you have them, but no need. You could just as easily use a mirror of inexpensive SATA SSDs.

You don't mention your HBA: What will you be using? Keep in mind you want that to be as "straight-through" as possible, IT mode firmware preferred. https://www.ixsystems.com/community...bas-and-why-cant-i-use-a-raid-controller.139/

ZFS: I'm assuming that's as two mirror vdevs, for a total of around 700GiB usable if you're willing to fill to 50%?

For VM block storage, think about iSCSI MPIO, and your block size. https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/the-path-to-success-for-block-storage.81165/

Since this is VM storage, will you be using sync writes? If so, think about a SLOG. STH has some good recommendations there. https://www.servethehome.com/buyers...as-servers/top-picks-freenas-zil-slog-drives/

NIC: Intel X520 or Chelsio are the usual go-tos for good driver support, see https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/10-gig-networking-primer.42/ . The card you have in mind here plain might not work: https://www.ixsystems.com/community...eebsd-drivers-for-hp-nc550sfp-10gb-nic.73892/

 

[dskiller13]

I was looking at dell systems with the H710p card. This is a non-raid controller. If the recommendation is to not run a raid card, how does one mirror the vdevs?

 

[dskiller13]

One more question, If I am using SSD for the ZFS, is a different ssd needed for SLOG?

 

[Yorick]

how does one mirror the vdevs?

This article is a great primer on zpools, vdevs, how redundancy works and what impacts performance: https://arstechnica.com/information...01-understanding-zfs-storage-and-performance/

As for SLOG: You may not need one, since your SSDs should be able to keep up with the sync writes by themselves. I think at least, I don’t build high performance systems. That’s a good point.