Build 6.0.5055 Cache

[Medium]

Hey Anatoly

The new build, did you limit the cache to only 512MB per device?.

Just asking because im sure i can set my cache size alot higher in the earlier versions (6.0.4768) so im thinking that I wouldnt get any improvement to the performance if I wanted to upgrade to the newest free version unless your saying that the cache is runing with a new engine or something ?

Best Regards

Michael

[DUOK]

Hello,

That limit is totally inappropriate to do performance testing with the hardware, I guess that only applies in HA mode, is this Anatoly?
If not, do not see the advantage of upgrading to this version.

Regards,

[Anatoly (staff)]

Hello Gentlemen,

May I ask you where did you get this information? Because probably I was misunderstood.

You may set as much cache for device as you wish - the limit is 2 TB of RAM, so actually we can say that there is no limit at all since I haven`t seen any system with this amount of random access memory.

[Ara]

according to the Patchnotes, the free license is limiting the cache:

2. Changes in licensing policy:
New free license:
- 2 servers and HA with limitation of 128GB. Single-node devices are not limited by storage size at all.
- Cache size per device is limited by value of 512MB.

[Medium]

As Ara is pointing out, i saw the information on the post "Starwind The Most Recent Version"


Best Regards

Michael

[Anatoly (staff)]

Gentlemen,

Yes, we have this limitation, but it is for the Free license only - all the commercial licenses doesn`t include this limitation, so as the 128GB storage capacity limit.

P.S. Sorry that I didn`t understood that we are talking about Free license initially.

[DUOK]

Hi Anatoly,

Only for clarifying,
In free version 6.0.4837 (not HA mode) there is no limit for cache.
In free version 6.0.5055 and version 6.0.5061 (not HA mode) the cache size per device is limited to 512MB.

If so, this is a total nuisance, since I will not be able to test hardware with StarWind at full speed.

Is there a solution?

[Anatoly (staff)]

Oh, bellieve me, this is not nuisance: 6.0.4837 hasn`t got HA mode included, while the latest build allows you to create HA device and run it for free without time limits.
If you want to get more memory usage - physical or virtual, then you need to take a loser look at trialing our software for furthere implementing it in your production environment.

[Medium]

So for us that love the free version (im my case I use it for the deduplication images) IF i want to upgrade my free version I actually lose performance (I use write-back cache 10GB for each device)

Wouldnt it be better to limit functions instead of the performance in the free version? or maybe drop it and keep the timelimit on the trail version ?

even thou that I hope yo continue to keep the free version FREE, so us the users can use starwind software at the homelabs/"prod".

Best Regards

Michael

[Anatoly (staff)]

So for us that love the free version (im my case I use it for the deduplication images) IF i want to upgrade my free version I actually lose performance (I use write-back cache 10GB for each device)

Wouldnt it be better to limit functions instead of the performance in the free version? or maybe drop it and keep the timelimit on the trail version ?

Well, actually community asked to get HA for free - and that is what is get. I hope everybdy understands that we cannot give everything for free:)
The 30days trial is always available on our website, and it is really easy to get it, so this shouldn`t be the concern.

even thou that I hope yo continue to keep the free version FREE, so us the users can use starwind software at the homelabs/"prod".

Bellieve me - StarWind will always have Free version. We really want to provide good and reliable SAN to all the people, and we are always trying too keep the pace, so having free SAN is not the problem.

[DarkDiamond]

Please don't take this post the wrong way... I'm very appreciative of having the kind of features available to me within the free edition of Starwind. To my knowledge, you're the only vendor to offer a free edition with dedupe, etc. along with the free support you provide in forums.

However...

In my specific scenario, I have one SAN node. I don't have a second one, so I'm not really interested in any highly available options now. I just have plain LUNs with no dedupe or snapshot support. Nothing fancy on my end. I have my most important VMs replicated to a local datastore on one of my ESXi hosts. I only use write through caching on my devices. However on my LUNs with a lot of VMs on them, I use 2-4 gigs of write through cache to boost read performance. I'm not using any write back cache for fears of losing important data if my power goes out and for whatever reason the SAN isn't powered down from my UPS. From my perspective, it's a shame that I lose the ability to set aside that amount of write through cache to gain a feature (HA) I have no interest in or need to use.

Would it be possible to limit the cache options to 512MB for highly available targets/devices (perfectly reasonable since this is a free product) and allow unlimited cache for standard non-HA luns? To me, this gives the community an important glimpse into highly available storage that they've been asking for. It also doesn't take anything away from those in the community who aren't using more advanced features.

[anton (staff)]

Provide your feedback. More you write - more chances we'll change feature list in the future. Nothing is stalled down. Nothing is static.

[Medium]

Please don't take this post the wrong way... I'm very appreciative of having the kind of features available to me within the free edition of Starwind. To my knowledge, you're the only vendor to offer a free edition with dedupe, etc. along with the free support you provide in forums.

However...

In my specific scenario, I have one SAN node. I don't have a second one, so I'm not really interested in any highly available options now. I just have plain LUNs with no dedupe or snapshot support. Nothing fancy on my end. I have my most important VMs replicated to a local datastore on one of my ESXi hosts. I only use write through caching on my devices. However on my LUNs with a lot of VMs on them, I use 2-4 gigs of write through cache to boost read performance. I'm not using any write back cache for fears of losing important data if my power goes out and for whatever reason the SAN isn't powered down from my UPS. From my perspective, it's a shame that I lose the ability to set aside that amount of write through cache to gain a feature (HA) I have no interest in or need to use.

Would it be possible to limit the cache options to 512MB for highly available targets/devices (perfectly reasonable since this is a free product) and allow unlimited cache for standard non-HA luns? To me, this gives the community an important glimpse into highly available storage that they've been asking for. It also doesn't take anything away from those in the community who aren't using more advanced features.

Im with you there DarkDiamond, I have no use for a free HA at my homelab/prod.

Best Regards

Michael

[Anatoly (staff)]

Thank you for your feedbacks gentlemen. I can assure you that your opinions will definitely be taken into account, and probably we will develop some solution that will be more flexible for users who have stand-alone server for SAN, and the ones who can/will run SAN in HA mode both.

For now I can only say once again that we cannot give everything for free due to obvious reasons (I guess), and we have start giving HA for free basing on the corresponding community requests.

If you want to have something that is highly performable I can suggest you to take a look at RAM disk, but I must warn you that this device type is not the most reliable to to RAM technology design - the data is loosing after server is stopped/restarted.

[jsmithv]

The last time I tested the software there was no limit to cache. I kept recreating my devices today thinking I was creating them incorrectly because i couldn't get past 512MB in write back cache, even though in the wizard I could set whatever I wished. In my lab I definitely don't need the HA features, just the performance associated with the cache. Hopefully you'll reconsider this option in future releases of the free product. Thanks,