Good day,
For educational purposes, I have bought some desktop pc's in order to build a virtual platform with 2 (or 3) ESXi hosts and 1 SAN (FreeNAS, no ESX, used for iSCSI for 2 hosts). Summarized, for storage, I would like between 1TB and 2TB capacity, that is data protected.
Now that I have these components, I am starting to seriously doubt about what hardware to use for what purpose and how to configure it. I listed my orders without RAM and HD specifications (I will buy these later depending on this outcome).
1x Dell Optiplex 755DT (originally meant for hosting FreeNAS for ISCSI usage, OS on USB, no ESXi, RAID1 hardware)
http://www.dell.com/...5_techspecs.pdf
-Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8400 (6M Cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB)
-RAM: up to 4x 2GB DDR2 RAM 800Mhz and 677 Mhz (only NON-ECC)
-Only 2 disks maximum
-Possibility to RAID 0 or RAID 1 (integrated 'controller', type is not mentioned, see pdf)
-Supports only WD or Samsung HDDs in RAID 1
2x DELL Precision 490 Workstation (meant for ESXi hosts because of 4 cores and RAM expandability)
http://www.dell.com/...cn_490_en.pdf��
- double socket Intel® Xeon® Processor 5110 (4M Cache, 1.60 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) dual core
- RAM: Up to 32GB quad-channel architecture DDR2 Fully Buffered DIMM (FBD) 533 and 667MHz ECC memory
- Chassis supports up to three internal drives (2.0TB maximum storage capacity)
- Integrated SATA 3.0Gb/s controller with support for RAID 0, 1, and 5;
The DELL Precision costed only half the price of the Optiplex. I can buy 1 additional for 40€/50USD.
All are with 1Gb ethernet and I plan on adding NICs and using dual ISCSI ports and link aggregation to Netgear SAN switch (with jumbo frames).
Now my questions are, if I want maximum SAN IOPs/throughput (if that is the only concern, somewhat maximum benchmark)
- Shoud I go for 2 disks RAID 1 or 3 disks RAID 5
- Should I use the Optiplex or a Precision?
- Should I use their hardware RAID 0, 1 or 5 or FreeNAS Software RAID? (Expansion possibility is not important, if that is required I would build a second SAN.)
- What disks should I buy? I prefer not to buy disks that are faster (more expensive) than the SAN can handle. Recommendation?
If I would have made decisions on the above, some additional questions will arise:
- Will deploying the SAN as an ESXi with a FreeNAS VM Appliance slow down the ISCSI significantly?.
All these choices do not make it any easier for me. Especially because these Precision machines are cheaper and I can buy also 3 at a very good price. Now that I found out the Precision have possibility of hardware RAID 5 and ECC, I really start doubting if the Optiplex would make a better SAN. The VM's that will be hosted are not production-level critical but a SQL Server datalogger and webserver will run on it.
Can you guys please provide me some input?
Just go for it
Kind Regards,
djorkaef
For educational purposes, I have bought some desktop pc's in order to build a virtual platform with 2 (or 3) ESXi hosts and 1 SAN (FreeNAS, no ESX, used for iSCSI for 2 hosts). Summarized, for storage, I would like between 1TB and 2TB capacity, that is data protected.
Now that I have these components, I am starting to seriously doubt about what hardware to use for what purpose and how to configure it. I listed my orders without RAM and HD specifications (I will buy these later depending on this outcome).
1x Dell Optiplex 755DT (originally meant for hosting FreeNAS for ISCSI usage, OS on USB, no ESXi, RAID1 hardware)
http://www.dell.com/...5_techspecs.pdf
-Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8400 (6M Cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB)
-RAM: up to 4x 2GB DDR2 RAM 800Mhz and 677 Mhz (only NON-ECC)
-Only 2 disks maximum
-Possibility to RAID 0 or RAID 1 (integrated 'controller', type is not mentioned, see pdf)
-Supports only WD or Samsung HDDs in RAID 1
2x DELL Precision 490 Workstation (meant for ESXi hosts because of 4 cores and RAM expandability)
http://www.dell.com/...cn_490_en.pdf��
- double socket Intel® Xeon® Processor 5110 (4M Cache, 1.60 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) dual core
- RAM: Up to 32GB quad-channel architecture DDR2 Fully Buffered DIMM (FBD) 533 and 667MHz ECC memory
- Chassis supports up to three internal drives (2.0TB maximum storage capacity)
- Integrated SATA 3.0Gb/s controller with support for RAID 0, 1, and 5;
The DELL Precision costed only half the price of the Optiplex. I can buy 1 additional for 40€/50USD.
All are with 1Gb ethernet and I plan on adding NICs and using dual ISCSI ports and link aggregation to Netgear SAN switch (with jumbo frames).
Now my questions are, if I want maximum SAN IOPs/throughput (if that is the only concern, somewhat maximum benchmark)
- Shoud I go for 2 disks RAID 1 or 3 disks RAID 5
- Should I use the Optiplex or a Precision?
- Should I use their hardware RAID 0, 1 or 5 or FreeNAS Software RAID? (Expansion possibility is not important, if that is required I would build a second SAN.)
- What disks should I buy? I prefer not to buy disks that are faster (more expensive) than the SAN can handle. Recommendation?
If I would have made decisions on the above, some additional questions will arise:
- Will deploying the SAN as an ESXi with a FreeNAS VM Appliance slow down the ISCSI significantly?.
All these choices do not make it any easier for me. Especially because these Precision machines are cheaper and I can buy also 3 at a very good price. Now that I found out the Precision have possibility of hardware RAID 5 and ECC, I really start doubting if the Optiplex would make a better SAN. The VM's that will be hosted are not production-level critical but a SQL Server datalogger and webserver will run on it.
Can you guys please provide me some input?
Just go for it
Kind Regards,
djorkaef
