Setup ZFS quick question

[Albert Yang]

Hi,

I Was wondering if someone could shed some light on what type of recommendation i should configure for the RAID setup. Currently the idea is running ZFS on proxmox. I was thinking something like this

the 4 disk of 600gig put raid 10 and leave the 1 left for a hot spare and would be the VM of the MSSQL

the 2tb of 4 disks another raid 10 and put file server vm

but the last 1.8tb there 5 disks so not sure what type of RAID i should put? or if someone else could recommend what type of setup they would use?

should i run the MSSQL VM inside the rpool configuring the raid 10 of 600 gigs with 15krpm or should i create the 7200rpm for the rpool and separately create another pool for the 15krpm disks?

Thank you

600GBsas disk 15k rpm
600GBsas disk 15k rpm
600GBsas disk 15k rpm
600GBsas disk 15k rpm
600GBsas disk 15k rpm
2tb sas 512E disk  7200rpm
2tb sas 512E disk  7200rpm
2tb sas 512E disk  7200rpm
2tb sas 512E disk  7200rpm
1.8tb SAS 512E DISK 10k rpm
1.8tb SAS 512E DISK 10k rpm
1.8tb SAS 512E DISK 10k rpm
1.8tb SAS 512E DISK 10k rpm
1.8tb SAS 512E DISK 10k rpm

 

[gea]

For VM or database storage I would strongly recommend a SSD or NVMe storage pool with sync enabled. In such a case disks, even 15k rpm are bad. Calculate around 100 physical write iops per disk wheras a good enterprise SSD is at around 40k and a Intel Optane is at 500k with a much lower latency.

For SSD or NVMe you need powerloss protection at least for the Slog device (This is the device that protects the rambased writecache). Avoid desktop SSD/NVMe as they are not well suited for steady writes. With fast NVMe like Intel Optane, you do not need an extra Slog, just enable sync.

I would prefer a fast SSD/NVMe pool for VMs and a slower disk based pool (ex Raid-Z2) for filer and backup use.

 

[Albert Yang]

Thanks for the reply, as for the vm storage currently the company prob wont let me get intel optane as for the vm database storage i would need around 4 600 gigs for the storage. What i might be able to do is maybe get 1 intel optane and put it as a SLOG, my other question is vm storage should be in the rpool or should i also create another storage?

 

[gea]

I would always recommend to use one disk for OS/rpool and keep the datapool separate. No dependency when you reinstall the OS or move the datapool.

 

[Albert Yang]

Thanks for the reply as for the dependency good point but im not worried much on that because i have backup of my vms just in case if proxmox dies out. My worries is that if rpool makes it slower on the vm and would it better to not have the raid 10 on the rpool and better to have it on a separate pool. i was looking at the NVE Intel Optane Memory M10 SSD M.2 2280 16GB would that work for a slog? or would i need more?

 

[gea]

16GB Optane is a bad Slog. Slow regarding 4k write iops/QD1 , no guaranteed powerloss protection and limited write endurance.

For a fast homeserver I would not start below Optane 800P, for a production system the datacenter Optane 4801x-100 GB is the cheapest entry point.

see also https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/intel-m10-as-zlog-in-low-end-file-server.25186/

 

[Albert Yang]

Thanks for the reply, so something like this?

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-SSDPEL1K100GA01-Optane-P4801X-100GB/dp/B07MN6K549?ref_=nav_custrec_signin&

so from what i can understand i would configure
this as my rpool raid 10 and put any vm that dont require speed just space

2tb sas 512E disk  7200rpm
2tb sas 512E disk  7200rpm
2tb sas 512E disk  7200rpm
2tb sas 512E disk  7200rpm

this would be a raid z1 again vms that dont require speed just space

1.8tb SAS 512E DISK 10k rpm
1.8tb SAS 512E DISK 10k rpm
1.8tb SAS 512E DISK 10k rpm
1.8tb SAS 512E DISK 10k rpm
1.8tb SAS 512E DISK 10k rpm

this pool raid 10 zfs would be vms that require speed like mssql

600GBsas disk 15k rpm
600GBsas disk 15k rpm
600GBsas disk 15k rpm
600GBsas disk 15k rpm

and the ssd NVE would be the SLOG?
correct me if im wrong
and if somehow my NVE slog gets damaged would the pool be affected as in it wont boot up? or would it just be slow again until i buy the replacement?

Thank you again

 

[gea]

I do not use Proxmox and can't comment about the ZFS boot Raid-10 or boot environment options. On Solarish what I use, this would be possible but quite unusual as rpool is used there for system and data only in a very basic home setup. I always use a small bootdisk ex a 50+ GB SSD.

If you want to use a single disk as an slog for 4 datapools you must create 4 partition with a minimum size of 10 GB each. Add a partition per pool as slog.

If an Slog fails, the pool reverts to the slower onpool ZIL what means a degraded performance. A dataloss is only the case on a crash during write with a failed slog at this moment. This very rare situation can be managed by a mirrorred Slog.

 

[Albert Yang]

Thank you so much