RE: Openfiler - anyone used it?

[Paul Gale <groups2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Martyn,

I've now setup an openfiler box and have two ESXi servers talking to it
ove=
r iSCSI - works pretty well. Performance was pants to start with but that
w=
as mostly due to my exchange server and a load of other stuff originally
ru=
nning on one box with only 8GB ram - having two boxes running seems to
have=
sorted that but it's early days.

I took your advice and got a nice GS724 and a couple of cheap PCI-X nics -
=
the iSCSI is running on it's own over the new switch and maxing out the
sin=
gle (so far) 1Gb connection with larger transfers. I even got my 3Ware
9590=
se card working but it only has slower SATA drives, so I think that's a
bit=
of a bottleneck - if only I could afford a load of fast SAS drives!

The one question I have for you - I've read a lot on bonding but still not
=
sure about how best to implement it - how did you setup yours? Not so much
=
the OF side, as that (appears) to be OK, although there are many blogs and
=
posts talking about modifying config files! I'm more thinking about the
ESX=
i side (ESXi 4.1) and whether you had to do any config on your switch?

Many thanks,
=20

Paul.

-----Original Message-----
From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of M=
artyn Wendon
Sent: 24 September 2010 18:26
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ukha_d] Openfiler - anyone used it?

Hi Paul,

I'm using Netgear GS series smart switches, performance seems OK to me,
but=
I guess it depends on your specific requirements.  Big switches (costing i=
n the thousands) tend to have a CPU per port, lower end switches have a
CPU=
per group of ports - I made sure that I put the VLANs on different port gr=
oups to spread the load.

The VMs using ISCSI run well - they are mainly desktop PCs though (XP)
that=
I use for specific tasks (e.g. VS2008 development work, Flash development =
work), they are on 24/7 but don't get used 24/7 if that makes
sense....Prev=
iously I had these VMs running on a 1TB SATA 7200RPM drive locally in the
E=
SXi box and the performance over ISCSI is infinitely more snappy - but the
=
RAID0 SAS 15,000 RPM drives and dedicated controller in the OF box are
resp=
onsible for that more than anything :-)

eBay is your friend for great bargains on ex-corporate IT gear that tends
t=
o be well looked after and run in air conditioned comms rooms.  I picked
up=
GS716, GS724 and GS748 Netgear switches over the past few years for =A380,=
=A390 and =A3150 respectively - that's a pretty healthy saving over the co=
st of new ones!  Intel quad port GB Nics come up from time to time
(PCI-e),=
depends on how much of a rush you are in!  I've accumulated 5 of those ove=
r a period of time and have never paid more than =A3100 or so for
each.....=
..again, a significant saving over the cost of new ones.

I also found that Intel dual port GB Nics can be had pretty cheaply if you
=
have a machine that can take advantage of PCI-x cards (I use HP ML115
boxes=
).  I bagged 4 PCI-x cards a while back for =A340!


One word of warning if you're going to use ISCSI for VMs - things can go
aw=
fully awry with a Windows install if the ISCSI drive suddenly disappears,
s=
o give consideration to making the OF box as redundant as possible and
don'=
t forget the networking infrastructure in-between the ESXi box and OF box
t=
oo!


Hope this helps,

Martyn

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Gale" <groups2@xxxxxxx>
To: <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 1:11 PM
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Openfiler - anyone used it?


> Ah really interesting - I'm sure I'll have a couple of questions when
I=20
> think it through a bit more. But a few to start:
>
> I have a managed gigabit switch that can create VLANs etc - never
them=20
> though - can a switch like this share iSCSI traffic and heavy
network=20
> traffic with no performance loss, or do you really need to dedicate
a=20
> whole switch to it for performance?
>
> A VM that boots and runs from the OpenFiler store - is this as good=20
> performance wise as running from a local single disk (or better -=20
> obviously depending on what type of h/w the openfiler box is based
on)???
>
> Did you buy your quad port nic's new or ebay etc? - what model?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Paul.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of=
=20
> Martyn Wendon
> Sent: 22 September 2010 20:16
> To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ukha_d] Openfiler - anyone used it?
>
> Yep, OpenFiler rocks :-)
>
> I have 2 * 2TB WD SATA drives exposed over SMB & NFS and 2 * 300GB
SAS
> 15,000 in Raid 0 on a Dell Perc 5i SAS Raid card exposed over ISCSI.
>
> Box is an HP ML115 AMD Opteron Quad Core with 8GB Ram and a quad
port=20
> Intel Pro GB PCI-e NIC card, 2 ports bonded for ISCSI traffic and 2
ports=
=20
> bonded for normal traffic (plus on-board NIC for management traffic).
>
> ESXi boxes using ISCSI for (some) VMs, dual quad port Intel Pro GB
PCI-e=
=20
> NIC cards in those too to allow segmentation of ISCSI traffic (as well
as=
=20
> bonding for VM traffic).
>
> Needless to say GB switches (Netgear) with appropriate LAGs and VLANs
to=
=20
> separate the network traffic....
>
> All works rather well IME.
>
>
> Martyn
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Gale" <groups2@xxxxxxx>
> To: <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 3:33 PM
> Subject: [ukha_d] Openfiler - anyone used it?
>
>
>> I'm just thinking about re-arranging my home, HA and work storage.
>>
>> One of my thoughts was to implement an openfiler NAS, connected to
VMWar=
e
>> ESXi VM servers (that I'm already running), rather than the
physical
>> Windows 2008 R2 file server and raid 5 setup I have.
>>
>> Has anyone here setup an openfiler box?
>>
>> Paul.
>>
>>
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>>
>>
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