Hi All
I want to setup VSAN at home to teach myself more about the product and for my studies. Currently I have the following (single) server setup:
Supermicro X10SL7-F
32GB RAM
1 x Samsung Pro 850 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD (cache)
2 x Samsung Pro 840 128GB SATA (capacity)
1 x Samsung Pro 830 256GB SATA (capacity)
1 x Samsung Pro 850 512GB SATA (capacity)
ESXi 6 update 2
I enabled VSAN 6.2 on this server and changed the VSAN storage policy to allow only a single node in the "cluster" and the first thing I noticed was that that performance was terrible (even changing the stripe set to 4 didn't help). I'm using the onboard LSI-2308 controller for all the above drives (except the PCIe one) and it has a queue depth of 600. I'm not using any kind of RAID controller/card and would like to avoid this if I can.
After much reading it looks like my issue is down to running consumer SATA SSD drives. I was hoping a VMware guru could have a glance over the drives I would like to purchase before clicking the buy button!
I was thinking of the following options:
1) Single Samsung SM863 240GB Enterprise Class SATA SSD for the cache tier and then two Samsung SM863 480GB Enterprise Class SATA SSD drives for the capacity tier
If this is a good option and I get 200-400MB/s speeds then I am happy. Otherwise:
2) Intel DC P3700 Add-in Card PCIe 400GB for the cache tier and two Samsung SM863 480GB Enterprise Class SATA SSD drives for the capacity tier
These drives are on the VSAN HCL but I wanted to check that I am on the right track for setting up a good performance VSAN datastore. On my current setup I was averaging 20MB/s which is sad.
Further down the line (later this year) I'll be purchasing a Supermicro Mini Tower Intel Xeon D-1541 with 128GB RAM and will be reusing the above drives (in option 1 or 2) so could I connect the SATA SSD drives to the onboard SATA ports and use the Intel PCIe SSD for cache and get good performance? I am worried that the onboard SATA ports/disk queue lenght may be an issue. If it is then I need to rather look into using an M2/U2 drive for the cache tier so I can use a PCIe IBM M1015 HBA card for the SATA SSD drives (this card is on the HCL and has a good disk queu depth). The Supermicro Mini Tower Intel Xeon D-1541 only has a single PCIe slot. If this works then I'll purchase a further 2 nodes to make a 3 node cluster. This first node is the "POC" to make sure I get all the right kit.
Anyways, sorry for long post. Will be spending loads on this setup in the coming weeks/months (and its my first VSAN setup) so want to make sure I have the correct hardware for the storage.
Thanks!
I want to setup VSAN at home to teach myself more about the product and for my studies. Currently I have the following (single) server setup:
Supermicro X10SL7-F
32GB RAM
1 x Samsung Pro 850 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD (cache)
2 x Samsung Pro 840 128GB SATA (capacity)
1 x Samsung Pro 830 256GB SATA (capacity)
1 x Samsung Pro 850 512GB SATA (capacity)
ESXi 6 update 2
I enabled VSAN 6.2 on this server and changed the VSAN storage policy to allow only a single node in the "cluster" and the first thing I noticed was that that performance was terrible (even changing the stripe set to 4 didn't help). I'm using the onboard LSI-2308 controller for all the above drives (except the PCIe one) and it has a queue depth of 600. I'm not using any kind of RAID controller/card and would like to avoid this if I can.
After much reading it looks like my issue is down to running consumer SATA SSD drives. I was hoping a VMware guru could have a glance over the drives I would like to purchase before clicking the buy button!
I was thinking of the following options:
1) Single Samsung SM863 240GB Enterprise Class SATA SSD for the cache tier and then two Samsung SM863 480GB Enterprise Class SATA SSD drives for the capacity tier
If this is a good option and I get 200-400MB/s speeds then I am happy. Otherwise:
2) Intel DC P3700 Add-in Card PCIe 400GB for the cache tier and two Samsung SM863 480GB Enterprise Class SATA SSD drives for the capacity tier
These drives are on the VSAN HCL but I wanted to check that I am on the right track for setting up a good performance VSAN datastore. On my current setup I was averaging 20MB/s which is sad.
Further down the line (later this year) I'll be purchasing a Supermicro Mini Tower Intel Xeon D-1541 with 128GB RAM and will be reusing the above drives (in option 1 or 2) so could I connect the SATA SSD drives to the onboard SATA ports and use the Intel PCIe SSD for cache and get good performance? I am worried that the onboard SATA ports/disk queue lenght may be an issue. If it is then I need to rather look into using an M2/U2 drive for the cache tier so I can use a PCIe IBM M1015 HBA card for the SATA SSD drives (this card is on the HCL and has a good disk queu depth). The Supermicro Mini Tower Intel Xeon D-1541 only has a single PCIe slot. If this works then I'll purchase a further 2 nodes to make a 3 node cluster. This first node is the "POC" to make sure I get all the right kit.
Anyways, sorry for long post. Will be spending loads on this setup in the coming weeks/months (and its my first VSAN setup) so want to make sure I have the correct hardware for the storage.
Thanks!