StarWind Virtual SAN Free on 1-node (Single node)

Software-based VM-centric and flash-friendly VM storage + free version

Moderators: anton (staff), art (staff), Max (staff), Anatoly (staff)

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fxtoofaan
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2019 11:09 pm

Thu Mar 12, 2020 1:11 pm

Hello StarWind team. I am interested in using StarWind Virtual SAN Free in my vmware 6.7 single server environment. I have about 10 SSD's in the server and its setup as Raid-6 with array controller.

Its a Dell server with 2 CPU's w/12 CPU's per socket. 512GB Ram, 4x 1GB nics.

My goal is to reduce storage footprint by using compression/dedupe and also increase storage performance for the vm's. I understand its a single server so my resiliency is 0 but its a small environment so its acceptable for now as long as after esxi or vsan vm crash and reboot the data is not lost.

I am struggling to find how to or step by step instructions on how to install the free version in my environment. I understand the free version is installed on windows host so I will have to spin up a VM but how do I attach storage to the vsan vm? rdm or just disk in vmfs? ram for the vm? cpu? as much info as I can would be greatly appreciated. again my goal is to get performance from storage and reduce storage usage in the server. thank you,
yaroslav (staff)
Staff
Posts: 2279
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:11 am

Thu Mar 12, 2020 4:18 pm

Greetings
reduce storage footprint by using compression/dedupe
There currently is no native deduplication and compression in StarWind VSAN. Log Structured File System (LSFS) is not supported anymore.
step by step instructions on how to install the free version in my environment.
You need to spin up a VM. You can use either StarWind VSAN for vSphere (https://ovf.starwind.com/tmplink/StarWi ... Sphere.zip) or a Windows Server VM (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/tmplin ... ind-v8.exe). The choice is yours!
Here are the guides:
StarWind VSAN for vSphere (coming as a Linux VM) https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... r-vsphere/. Please, make sure to configure the networking on ESXi host as outlined in the Preparing Environment for StarWind VSAN Deployment -> Configuring Networks section of this document https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... phere-6-5/
StarWind VSAN for Hyper-V installed into a Windows Server VM https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... phere-6-5/
You have only one host, so obviously, there is nowhere to create a replica. Just create StarWind IMG files.
You are using a free version so most of the work in StarWind Management console (you need a Windows machine to run one) is going to be done through Powershell. StarWind VSAN comes with a set of commandlets - StarWind X module. Just pick the right cmdlet and enjoy!
how do I attach storage to the vsan vm
RDM or a thick provision eager zeroed VMDK, both are fine (RDM is is a bit faster).
ram for the vm
8GB+additional memory RAM cache. All reserved.
Small insight. If you are up to the high performance, you need either to tweak RAID 6 much or reconfigure it to something like RAID 10. RAID 6's parity eats most of the writing performance... Under some circumstances (we are still studying why exactly) RAM cache does not boost the performance of StarWind VSAN for vSphere. Again, this happens extremely rarely and we do not know exactly why.
cpu
Make sure to add 8vCPUs to your VM.

Should you need any assistance/info from us, just let me know!
batiati
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2019 1:16 pm
Location: Brazil
Contact:

Tue Mar 17, 2020 11:28 pm

Hi

There currently is no native deduplication and compression in StarWind VSAN. Log Structured File System (LSFS) is not supported anymore.
Is that true? LSFS is not supported anymore?
yaroslav (staff)
Staff
Posts: 2279
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:11 am

Wed Mar 18, 2020 8:38 am

Yes, I am sorry to inform that we need to redesign it.
I do not know further plans about it.
batiati
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Apr 08, 2019 1:16 pm
Location: Brazil
Contact:

Wed Mar 18, 2020 3:28 pm

Wow, it's surprised me!
I didn't hear any news about it ... Was there some official announcement?

Actually, I don't use LSFS, but I intend to use async replication in the near future.
I suppose that now the way to perform async replication wil be by Flat images + LWC, right? Or is it not supported too?
yaroslav (staff)
Staff
Posts: 2279
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:11 am

Wed Mar 18, 2020 3:57 pm

For this time being, StarWind Command Center is intended only for HCAs only. We do not install it yet but hopefully, we begin shortly. Well, we did prepare some documentation on StarWind Command Center, but later realized how to make it even better.

I do not recommend using async because of overprovisioning (you need LSFS on the passive side). Well, of course, you can but make sure that the passive node meets LSFS requirements https://www.starwindsoftware.com/help/C ... evice.html. Also, LWC is still an experimental feature. We do not recommend using it for production.
fxtoofaan
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2019 11:09 pm

Thu Mar 19, 2020 7:12 pm

looks like LSFS is being replaced by Log-structured Write-Back Cache (LSWBC)

https://www.starwindsoftware.com/log-st ... ache-lswbc
yaroslav (staff)
Staff
Posts: 2279
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:11 am

Fri Mar 20, 2020 8:40 am

Yes, generaly speaking.
We decided to give this technology a shot as a caching mechanism.
Tim
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:27 pm

Fri Nov 27, 2020 11:53 pm

Is it still the case that SAN free does not support dedupe feature?

That would be shame as your dedup tool shows 75.30% duplication on the volume I keep my VM disks (VHDX files).

Code: Select all

Scanned directory: "G:\"
Total files: 39
Total skipped files: 0
Total data: 203 GB
Total proceeded data: 53344846 blocks (218500489216 bytes)
Unique bloks: 13178661 blocks (53979795456 bytes)
Deduplication ratio: 75.30%
yaroslav (staff)
Staff
Posts: 2279
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:11 am

Mon Nov 30, 2020 4:13 am

Tim, dedupe still works only wtih LSFS.
Please consider using Windows deduplication.
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