Floored by optane performance

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Yeah, I'm not sure about Intel's strategy with the Optane Dimm modules. It sounds good in theory as a tiered ram enhancement but having primary memory with limited write endurance does not seem advantageous. I like it as a next generation secondary storage but don't think it will in any way replace SDRAM.

 

[wildpig1234]

Yeah, I'm not sure about Intel's strategy with the Optane Dimm modules. It sounds good in theory as a tiered ram enhancement but having primary memory with limited write endurance does not seem advantageous. I like it as a next generation secondary storage but don't think it will in any way replace SDRAM.

Yeah, we might need a new bus for it to take advantage of the improved speed but i am not favoring using it to replace ram.

But i guess if you are not going to fill up all your ram slots, then maybe it might be useful to use the available ram slot for a few of these? but it definitely should not be a substitute for ram.

 

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I believe that Optane will require dedicated Dimm slots. I don't see them having acceptable performance while being limited to 1.2-1.4v that DDR4 Dimms are designed for. There is already a lot of speculation of reduced performance with the upcoming 905P M.2 at 3.3v. The case for dedicated Dimm slots is made stronger by Intel's statement that Optane persistent memory is limited to Cascade Lake. If it was a drop in replacement for DDR4, i don't see them severely limiting the market on what they believe is their next big growth segment. What we will most likely see is six traditional Dimms and two Optane Dimms per socket.

 

[S-F]

What we will most likely see is six traditional Dimms and two Optane Dimms per socket.

And you will need an Intel CPU and Windows Gestapo Edition™ to utilize it..... ?

 

[Johnny Mnemonic]

It looks like it will be a Intel exclusive but I believe there will be support for Linux since it’s aimed at data centers and Intel has their own Linux distro ‘Clear Linux’.

 

[i386]

Jedec has it covered under a new standard (work in porgress), nvdimm-p. If your os supports that standard then ot will work with optane in nvdimm slots.

 

[venno]

Does that mean the following?

+ Use the 900p as ESXi data store
+ Create a virtual HDD inside FreeNAS VM pointing to the above ESXi data store for location. Basically create a vmdk file.
+ Create a SLOG using the above virtual drive (vmdk file)

or use RDM?

Thanks

I am building a ZFS ESXi AIO box and have an optane 900p, I have also run out of resources to provide a disk for the intial ESXi ZFS VM.

I see that people are using the optane to perform both these functions by providing slices of it as virtual disks that are exposed to the ZFS VM. I am a newb at ZFS AIO and in truth have only a basic operational understanding of ESXi although I have used it in home lab since 5.2.

Could someone explain or provide instruction on exactly how to accomplish the goal of using the optane for both 1st datastore and slog?

 

[Rand__]

Not entirely sure whether you need a full guide for setting up the AIO (eg https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/esxi-napp-it-all-in-one-with-usb-datastore.15897/, replace the USB drive with an optane drive) , or only the optane part.
The optane part is quite simple
-Shutdown your ZFS box
-Add a new virtual disk (or two), eager zeroed, size depending on networking (8GB for 10G) for slog, depending on free memory for l2arc which is located on the optane drive to the existing SAS adapter (or a new one. Dont use nvme on FreeNas yet [at least not on 11.1, have not tested 11.2 yet)
-in ZFS box add the drive(s) where you want them

 

[venno]

Thanks for that, just looking for detailed instructions on how to carve out parts of the optane memory and allocate as a slog whilst having the optane as primary ESXi datastore. I see most posts that mention this do so in an abstract or high level manner, what i am looking for are the actual cli commands (if any), ESXi GUI config steps ...etc... in detail/how to format as i want to be sure I haven't missed anything out.

 

[Rand__]

I had a screenshot here: https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...penindiana-2017-10-no-luck.17560/#post-202417
if that helps

 

[Kev]

Is it me or does FreeNas not work well with NVME virtual device?

 

[Rand__]

What do you mean?
Virtual nvme Controller? That has issues. Direct passthrough in vm environment? Issues too.
No idea what you are talking about

But to be fair Solaris abd clones has the same issues i think

 

[vrod]

I never had any issues with passing through PCI controllers in VMware-based VM’s for freenas... but if you talk about the virtual NVMe-controller for VMware, I only recommend using this if your backend is pure NVMe-based storage. Otherwise use the Paravirtual SCSI adapter.

 

[Rand__]

I of course was referring to optane drive passthrough, just to be clear. Regular PCIe and pre optane nvme drives work fine

 

[Kev]

When I add a virtual nvme device backed by 900p for slog, I get the following errors in freenas logs.

nvme0: DATASET MANAGEMENT sqid:1 cid:71 nsid:1
nvme0: INVALID OPCODE (00/01) sqid:1 cid:71 cdw0:0
nvme0: DATASET MANAGEMENT sqid:1 cid:84 nsid:1
nvme0: INVALID OPCODE (00/01) sqid:1 cid:84 cdw0:0
nvme0: DATASET MANAGEMENT sqid:1 cid:116 nsid:1

 

[Rand__]

Yes thats the virtual nvme controller, have the same errors for that one. Same as a regular disk works fine

 

[MiniKnight]

Here's the bigger problem: FreeNAS. You used to get FreeNAS to get ZFS. Now FreeBSD is getting ZFS from ZoL. You're better off going Linux in the first place and skipping poor hardware support.

 

[Rand__]

Still hoping @gea will support Napp-IT on linux
Or does anyone know of a nice gui for ZoL ?

 

[gea]

A GUI like napp-it that is available for a suite of Solarish operating systems for general "Linux" with an equal functionality is quite impossible as every Linux distribution behaves too different.

This is why there is probably only OMV (only with a quite basic ZFS support) that comes with its own distribution (similar to say Synology/Xpenology that also includes its Linux distribution)

 

[Rand__]

Ah I see
- too bad, but thanks for the feedback