Will StarWind Work with ESXi

stanj · Thu Jul 09, 2015 8:13 pm

Looking at using StarWind with VMware vSphere 6.0 for a shared storage solution

However, reading the StarWind hardware requirements and RAID, we may have an issue.
We have two servers with.....
8 Intel 200GB SSDs (connected to integrated LSI SAS) and
4 Seagate 2TB HDDs (connected to an integrated SATA controller).

We put the 8 SSDs in a RAID6 for one datastore and
the 4 Seagate’s are standalone datastores.
Currently, 5 datastores on each ESXi Server are available

We have VMs currently residing on the SSD RAID6 Datastore, so I do not think we can reconfigure it to RAID 10.
Also, we would loose disks space since RAID 10 requires more drives,

We have 5 datastores showing in vCenter for each ESXi Server.
As I said, datstore2 is the RAID6 SSD which is about 1.2 TB
Datastore3-6 are standalone which are about 1.8 TB each.

This is a small setup with about 6 - 7 VMs on one ESXi Sever

Will the StarWind work with the 2TB nonRAID drives datastore3-6?
Could it work with the RAID6 SSD datastore?

What are our options..

thanks

Fri Jul 10, 2015 11:23 am

Hi Stanj,
Using RAID10 is a recommendation for an all-spindle array.
All-flash can be a RAID6 since the performance penalty is not so noticeable with Flash drives.

As for the individual drives, we're fine with that.
The question is whether it delivers sufficient performance for the VM you'll be running on it.

stanj · Fri Jul 10, 2015 12:13 pm

There would at least vCenter Server with Update Manager and View Composer

also,

Horizon View Connection Server
Domain Controller (A/D)
and a few Win7 VMs

When you say '..individual drives, we're fine with that.."
Doe that mean we do not need to use the LSFS

Stan

Sat Jul 11, 2015 11:05 am

1) Should work fine.

2) LSFS is optional.

3) vCenter plug-in for mgmt is on the way. Hope to release before VMworld 2015 in SF.

stanj wrote:There would at least vCenter Server with Update Manager and View Composer

also,

Horizon View Connection Server
Domain Controller (A/D)
and a few Win7 VMs

When you say '..individual drives, we're fine with that.."
Doe that mean we do not need to use the LSFS

Stan

stanj · Tue Jul 14, 2015 12:54 pm

Thanks

Where do you set the LSFS option?

For the shared storage,
Should we look at using the RAID6 SSD datastore
or
the Standalone datastores that are the 7.2k SATA

Also,
We only may have two 1gb nics available across both ESXi Servers.
Will this work?

And looking at the install guide, there are steps for auto VM startup , and adding a rescan HBA script.

All we want to do is used shared storage..is it necessary to set all of this up?

Good to know about the plug-in for vCenter.

thanks

darklight · Wed Jul 15, 2015 4:04 pm

Hi Stanj,

1) LSFS is under thin-provisioned device. I know, it's not obvious, but it is

2) Depending on needed performance. SSDs are fast but expensive, so it's up to you. StarWind is hardware agnostic and works almost on top of everything.
3) Should work, but maybe not so fast. Again it depends on your load.

stanj · Wed Jul 15, 2015 4:27 pm

ok

also
We are looking at trying the following

On ESXi Server 1, creating a Windows 2012 Server Stawind VM (starwind1).
Create four 1.5 TB disks (vmdk) that will reside on the four standalone datastores.
Then, using MS 2012 Storage Virtualization, pool the drives into a RAID5 configuration.

On ESXi Server 2, creating a Windows 2012 Server Stawind VM (starwind2)..
Create four 1.5 TB disks (vmdk) that will reside on the four standalone datastores.
Then, using MS 2012 Storage Virtualization to pool the drives into a RAID5 configuration.

The reason being that we cannot afford to lose data that will be residing on the ESXi Datastore and RAID5 would protect the data.

Install StarWind on both Vms

I saw in the instructions that
Important notice: Please note that the use of software based RAID arrays in the StarWind Virtual SAN environment is not recommended.

I need a confirmation on what we are looking at trying will work and what is meant by … “Software Based RAID” on STARWIND is not recommended.

Would the replication be an option if we cannot use MS Software to RAID the drives?

thank

darklight · Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:20 am

Software Based RAID will definitely grant you significant problems not only with StarWind. I would strictly recommend you to avoid using Storage Virtualization. Since StarWind already grants you fault-tolerant storage why not consider using all the drives directly? The more simple setup you'll make - the fewer problems you'll have and the more performance you'll gain.

stanj · Mon Jul 20, 2015 10:28 am

Ok, we did not do the sortware RAID

I now have four 2 TB drives attached to the Starwind VM,,

Can I pool these 4 drives into one to get a 8 TB storage pool to storage between the two esxi servers?

If so, how?

stanj · Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:38 am

In addition to the last post I made, can we use Windows 2012 "Spanned Volume" to take the 4 drives and make them 1 dynamic volume then use starwind to provision the disk

darklight · Tue Jul 21, 2015 8:20 am

As for me, I never use additional instances like Storage Spaces, Storage Pools, Spanned Volumes, Dynamic Drives and so on. They are proven to decrease performance and since it's a more complicated setup it is always more complicated to find out what is the root of the problem if any.

I always try to use the simplest configuration, so in your case I would just create 4 x 2TB StarWind devices (1 on each drive) without any additional instances having StarWind to work directly with the drive granting better performance and simplicity/stability.

stanj · Tue Jul 21, 2015 11:05 am

ok

so
On ESXi-01 and ESXi-02, I have a VM with four 1.8 TB Disk .

I brought up the StarWInd Console and went into advanced and for each disk, i created an LSFS on each drive.

I assume that since this is thin provision, that is the reason I see 1.79 GB of disk space on available on the each disk?.

If I right click on each lsfs1-4, I can replicate to ESXi-02.
But, that is replicating each individual disk and I cannot get one disk with the size of 7.2 TB (the combination of all for drives)?

So, I will have 4 individual disks on ESXi-01 and ESXi-02?

stanj · Wed Jul 22, 2015 12:54 pm

I will set up a 7.8 TB volume comprised of the 4 vmdk drives attached to the VM by using the MS 2012 Storage Spaces.

The question is, should the vmdk drives that are created by adding the VM be thin provisioned or thick?
Then, the Storage Spaces allows for thin or fixed...?
so, there can end up being a mix

VM vmdk = thin or thick
storage space virtaul disk - thin or fiixed (thick)
StarWind disk = LSFS or thick

Does it matter if there is a mix or will it be better performance for all thin?

darklight · Thu Jul 23, 2015 8:35 am

You can not even imagine, how it does matter.

Do not use any (or as less as possible) additional instances between StarWind device and the underlying storage. Maybe it's not always flexible but wa-a-a-ay more stable and faster

Thu Jul 23, 2015 12:10 pm

Hello!

Please let me know if you have any questions left. Thank you!