so i'm getting my new intel server setup to replace my cube server.
Specs:
* Intel R2312GL4GS 2U with 12 x 3.5 hdd
* RMS25CB080 6Gb/s SAS/SATA Integrated RAID Module (LSI SAS2208 RAID with 1GB cache)
with a AXXRMFBU2 Intel RAID Maintenance Free Backup Unit and RES2SV240 SAS Expander
* m1015 card flashed to it mode
* 2 x e5-2670 v1 cpu
*64 GB ddr3 1333 ecc ram (will upgrade down the road to 128GB)
* quad nics
* dual 750 psu
* 2 RT8N1 DELL 10GB ETHERNET NETWORK
*4 x 8TB WD Red
*4 x 250GB Evo SSD
* coming soon 2 x 6TB RED when i move off cube server
Server been updated and i got the fans to a manageable speed to reduce noise. As configured with esxi 6.5 and one w10 test vm it idles around 188 watts. Not to bad considering the specs
So I been playing with the raid card. I decide on raid 10 for the 4 x 8tb drives. I did two VD, one at 10TB for VM to be iscsi out to two other esxi nodes. The other is 4 tb for vm backups.
Im currently testing the setting on each VD but so far i like:
VM VD - 10TB - No read ahead, always write back, direct io.
Backup VD - 4TB - always read ahead, write through, direct io.
*Note I made the working set 2gb to bypass cache.
I dont have the ssd unlock key for the raid card to use the ssd as 2nd level cache. so I might not use the ssd at all, or i may just do a full ssd raid 0 for high performance vm.
Next on the list is to figure out how i want to share the storage out. I can either passthrough the card to a vm such as ws2012 and use starwind etc. or add the storage as datastores to the local esxi host, then create drives and pass those into the starwind linux application.
Suggestions welcome