Recommended configuration for HA All-Flash

chuck614 · Sat Nov 21, 2020 10:32 pm

I am trying to build out a 2 node HA StarWind storage system. Here is the hardware...

2 identical recent HP servers with 8 x 1.9TB enterprise SSD's and 8 x 3.8TB enterprise SSD's each, 256GB of RAM, 2 x 40Gb sync network, and 4 x 10Gb iSCSI network

Based on what I am reading I could do a 7 drive RAID 5 with a spare and another 7 drive RAID 5 with a spare on each node. I am trying to minimize wear on the SSD's but still have very fast performance for Hyper-V cluster VMs. Should I do standard flat images for presenting storage, or is there a benefit to LSFS? I would like the ability to do snapshots, but am concerned about reliability with LSFS. If LSFS would be better for performance or other reasons, should I configure with or without deduplication?

Thanks!
Kurt

Mon Nov 23, 2020 6:01 am

Hi Kurt,

Welcome to StarWind Forum.
I'd recommend going with flat images as the HA storage. LSFS was designed with slow spindle drives in mind and it might not provide the performance boost you are looking for on an all-flash array.

chuck614 · Fri Dec 11, 2020 10:53 pm

If I don't head down the LSFS path, is it because of no need because of spinning rust vs. SSD or is it because of reliability? My concern is being able to snapshot storage with flat images? Also what about other config like RAID array and StarWind image file cache settings?

Mon Dec 14, 2020 6:14 am

Greetings,

LSFS just does not provide the performance boost on SSD as you expect. Also, please have a look at LSFS requirements https://knowledgebase.starwindsoftware. ... scription/.
Here are the RAID settings that we recommend https://knowledgebase.starwindsoftware. ... ssd-disks/.
For SSD, RAM caching does not improve the performance dramatically, and you need faster flash storage for L2 cache. So, in most cases, there is no need for StarWind caching in all-flash environments.

chuck614 · Mon Dec 14, 2020 10:17 pm

OK, understood on the caching and performance. I meet all the requirements for LSFS, but am fine not using it if there is a snapshot option for standard images.

In the RAID guide I don't see RAID 6 mentioned anywhere. So if I don't want the storage loss of RAID 10, RAID 5 is fine for 8 SSDs?

Thanks,
Kurt

Mon Dec 14, 2020 10:46 pm

Hi,

There is no need of taking snapshots of HA devices (flat images).
Speaking of RAID settings, those are recommendations which we noticed to grant somehow better performance. You can build RAID 5 out of 8 disks too.