Is L2 cache now stable?

darklight · Mon Nov 02, 2015 10:13 am

Yeah, it is.

Fri Nov 06, 2015 8:26 pm

New 8716 build is available on our website.

L2 cache is super stable, however, we have noticed minor performance slow downs in some scenarios. This will be improved soon.

jhamm@logos-data.com · Sat Nov 07, 2015 12:36 am

We are about to implement L2 cache. Can you please specify those scenarios?

Thanks,
Jeff

jhamm@logos-data.com · Mon Nov 09, 2015 6:08 pm

Just saw that a new build was released on Friday. My main question:

- Does this fix the issue where LSFS with deduplication and L2 cache do not play nicely together?

OR

- If using L2 cache, should I still stick with a Flat Image file?

Thanks!
Jeff

darklight · Tue Nov 10, 2015 10:54 am

Hi, Jhamm.

FYI some thoughts regarding L2 also:
https://forums.starwindsoftware.com/vie ... f=5&t=4390

Fri Nov 13, 2015 3:39 pm

Thanks Darklight for making an awesome contribution to our community.

We have noticed some issues with L2 cache performance on fast and very fast (SAS) spindle drives. Right now we are making some further testing and improvements. I will keep you updated.

frufru · Wed Feb 17, 2016 7:40 am

Hi Guys,
what about L2 cache with fixed disk in this build 8.0.8730 ? Is super stable and ready for 1hour SLA?

Performance issues are solved?

i need to know for sure ....

Fri Feb 19, 2016 8:19 am

L2 cache is stable and fully production ready.
Performance is still debatable sometimes.

SkyscraperTN · Sat Apr 09, 2016 7:49 pm

Hi, i have a question.

If in a production environment, lets say you have a raid6 volume from your raid controller, and a raid0 ssd volume for l2 purposes.

And, if you setup a Thick 10tb vdisk on the raid6, with a 10gb/100gb/xxxgb l2 cache on the raid0ssd,

And, if for whatever reason the raid0 ssd volume fails or becomes off line - how well can Starwind recover from this. Will it continue to work with warnings? Will it completely fail the entire target? Anybody tried this scenario, or have any experience with this?

Can the path of the l2 cache be changed online?

Thanks!

PoSaP · Tue Apr 12, 2016 12:31 pm

Hi

As far as I know, in case of SSD RAID with L2 cache failure starwind devices will fall down.
And about path, you can change it only if you recreate device.
I hope it was helpful.

Fri Apr 22, 2016 5:24 pm

@PoSaP you are right, for now scenario with loosing L2 storage is in developing.
We`ll keep community updated if something will change.

frufru · Tue Jul 19, 2016 2:21 pm

Hi, any updates with L2 cache RAID0 scenario (2node HA)? What about performance? Stable? Thanks

Thu Jul 21, 2016 6:52 pm

Hello,

L2 cache is stable in all scenarios since 8716 build. As it was mentioned before, there are some issues with performance.

We have released a build today with completely reworked L2 cache. It is stable and with fixed performance issues, but available as an experimental feature and not recommended for a Production yet. The previous L2 cache also available for usage.

We would appreciate if you will send us any feedback about the new L2 cache.

frufru · Wed Aug 10, 2016 3:05 pm

Hello Michael,

in new L2 cache version is necessary to have L2 cache placed on RAID1 SSD´s? Can i use PCIe or single SSD for L2 withou RAID1? 2 node scenario. What happend when i lose single SSD withou RAID1?

Mon Aug 15, 2016 7:52 am

Hello frufru,
Technically, you can put L2 cache even on a single SSD or PCIe, but it is always better to have RAID1 for redundancy. In case if you lose SSD drive for L2 cache, the device will become non-active and will not be reachable.

Please check the KB article below how to restore device state after SSD drive failure:
https://knowledgebase.starwindsoftware. ... ts-broken/