Hyperconverged Storage Solutions for 3-4 Node Cluster

[DBordello]

I am thinking about putting together a small cluster to replace an again, single server. For such a small setup, storage becomes problematic. However, I want to retain the benefits of shared storage. That is why I am drawn to hyperconverged solutions. Cost is always a concern. Our storage demands are not large, about 1-2TB. I would like to build the entire setup using Supermicro hardware, for about $10k. I am leaning towards in towards NVMe drives. Due to costs, I am leaning towards Hyper-V.

For this size cluster, what software would you recommend. Some options I have found

• Windows 2016 Storage Spaces Direct - IF this requires Datacenter licenses, it is a nonstarter. However, I do like this approach the best.
• Starwind Virtual San
• EMC ScaleIO - I have seen some references that it does not do well with smaller clusters.

If anyone has any experience with these, please let me know. Even more useful, would be estimated costs.

 

[cesmith9999]

What is your processing power needs. you will not get much for that budget.

You are looking at 4 nodes with 2U servers. NVMe is nice but $$$. You can use SATA SSD (on a SAS HBA) with S2D. I am doing that with my S2D POC configuration.

Some new documentation (and features) for 2016 TP5
S2D | Server Storage at Microsoft

Chris

 

[DBordello]

My needs are fairly low, and there is a bit of room in the budget. This setup would be replacing a single server, that basically is a file server. However, everybody loves fancy virtualization

S2D is slick looking. The licensing is just a concern.

 

[Evan]

I assume your using mostly windows VM's ?
Pay close attention to the licensing on the required license for windows .

If it's mostly linux VM why not consider proxmox, you can use ceph as storage in a hyper converged cluster.

 

[DBordello]

It would mostly be Windows Server VMs with a couple Linux VMs. My interpretation of the licensing is that a Windows Server Standard license will allow you 2 VMs (each node).

 

[cesmith9999]

yes it does. however that license (currently - I do not know how this will change in the future) is that you need to be licensed for maximum number of VM's per server.

so if you have 4 nodes and 8 VM's. to be safe you would need two Standard licenses per server (8 total) to allow for 2 nodes to go down.

DC licensing is currently unlimited VM's per host.

Chris

 

[Evan]

@cesmith9999 thanks for explaining it in an easy way, I was just going to say you need twice as many as you expect you need. Unless your only running 1 or 2 windows systems and lots of linux the 'standard' license is pretty limited. As soon as you get to 5 windows VM on 2 or more physical servers the datacenter license makes sense.... Which gets you s2d. Problem is the $4-5k you pay for each datacenter license.