Software-based VM-centric and flash-friendly VM storage + free version
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awedio
- Posts: 89
- Joined: Sat Sep 04, 2010 5:49 pm
Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:42 pm
Test box running 2008 R2. (1x i7 950, 12gb RAM, 1x Intel quad nic)
2x Intel X25-M 80GB SSD (1 for boot "C", 1 for storing .img "L")
L drive contains 4x 10 gig .img targets.
How can I maximize throughput to these targets?
More memory?
More NIC cards?
Is it possible dedicate 1 NIC per target?
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Aitor_Ibarra
- Posts: 163
- Joined: Wed Nov 05, 2008 1:22 pm
- Location: London
Tue Sep 14, 2010 6:14 pm
Assuming that the clients are different physical boxes, dedicate a port from your quad nic to each target. Just give each port a different ip address in windows. If your client(s) are on one physical box, then you will need a nic port on each target to get 4x 1GbE. Do this, use a write back cache (with 12GB RAM you can do 2-3GB cache per target!), and you should be able to max out at about 100MB/sec on each target.
If you only have two boxes, and both have quad port nics, then don't bother putting a switch between them. That will cut a tiny amount of latency out!
You could try MPIO to boost bandwidth, but this will only help with parallel i/o. E.g. if you have two paths between client and server, the most you'll see is about 100MB/sec when doing a single file copy, but you might be able to do two file copies at 100MB/sec each, on the same target.
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awedio
- Posts: 89
- Joined: Sat Sep 04, 2010 5:49 pm
Tue Sep 14, 2010 10:10 pm
Since each client is on a physical box, they'll each get a dedicated port.
On the target box, how do you "tie" each .img to a specific nic?
The targets need to be "clustered"
I know you can give each nic a different ip address.
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Aitor_Ibarra
- Posts: 163
- Joined: Wed Nov 05, 2008 1:22 pm
- Location: London
Tue Sep 14, 2010 10:26 pm
By default, for a non-HA target, Starwind listens on every ip address, so you don't need to configure it on the starwind box, but on the iSCSI initiators.
Also you may find you get better performance by turning off the firewall, on both Starwind box and the clients, for the iSCSI NICs. If the iSCSI part of the network is seperate to everything else, you will still have security. This might not make such a difference with 1Gbit, but it does with 10Gbit...
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awedio
- Posts: 89
- Joined: Sat Sep 04, 2010 5:49 pm
Tue Sep 14, 2010 11:45 pm
Thx for the advice.
I'll try it with the fw on & off and if there's a difference.
Even though the dual path iscsi network is dedicated, I'm a little "worried" about turning off the fw on the clients, since they support other vm's that might communicate with the outside world.
I'm always open to advice on how to better accomplish or tackle issues like this.
