Starwind on SSD - Thin or thick provisioning better?

[fanello]

Hi,

If I use starwind on SSDs, is it better to use thin or thick provisioning? What about the auto-defrag feature. Should I activate it with SSDs?
In my opinion thin provisioning should be quicker on SSDs because of TRIM. If I use thick provisioning the host doesn't see the free areas on the SSDs and can't trim it. Is this correct?

Regards
Benny

[anton (staff)]

Use LSFS with flash to accelerate writes, make flash life longer (reduced amount of writes and erase cycles) and increase capacity (usable) because of dedupe.

[fanello]

Thanks for your reply. Should I activate the auto defrag feature?

[anton (staff)]

YES

Thanks for your reply. Should I activate the auto defrag feature?

[fbifido]

Hi,

If I use starwind on SSDs, is it better to use thin or thick provisioning? What about the auto-defrag feature. Should I activate it with SSDs?
In my opinion thin provisioning should be quicker on SSDs because of TRIM. If I use thick provisioning the host doesn't see the free areas on the SSDs and can't trim it. Is this correct?

Regards
Benny

on SSD, you will use LSFS (thin)
enable auto-defrag
enable dedup

I think that's what "anton" is saying !

BTW:
1) what size is your SSD?
2) What OS are you using?
3) Are u using windows dedup?
4) Are u using HD & SSD or just all SSD?

[Anatoly (staff)]

fbiofido reminded me few things that is worth for you to know:
1.Don`t use any other deduplication except StarWind. Having more then one DD running will ruin the DD effect.
2.Don`t use the thin provisioning on the VM level, otherwise they won`t dedup at all.

[barrysmoke]

can you elaborate on the thin provisioning at the vm level?
I would assume that the empty space on thin provisioned vm's wouldn't matter if the starwind dedup is block level?

I want my cake, and eat it too in other words

[anton (staff)]

VM space would be returned to StarWind LUN but StarWind should also take care of returning LUN space to host.

can you elaborate on the thin provisioning at the vm level?
I would assume that the empty space on thin provisioned vm's wouldn't matter if the starwind dedup is block level?

I want my cake, and eat it too in other words

[MichelZ]

Is LSFS now out of "experimental" mode?

[anton (staff)]

Yes, GOLD now. But like with ZFS we do update it all the time.

Is LSFS now out of "experimental" mode?