Comments on: StorMagic SvSAN with High Availability mirroring http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/stormagic-svsan-with-high-availability-mirroring/ Your P.I. on virtualization Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:28:38 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: When You Turn Your VMhost into an iSCI, it Better be a Good Host « Availability Advisor http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/stormagic-svsan-with-high-availability-mirroring/comment-page-1/#comment-1044 When You Turn Your VMhost into an iSCI, it Better be a Good Host « Availability Advisor Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:13:08 +0000 http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737#comment-1044 [...] 29Jul10 There are some great new storage software solutions coming onto the market and this one caught my attention as it gives the ability to turn your vmware host into an [...] [...] 29Jul10 There are some great new storage software solutions coming onto the market and this one caught my attention as it gives the ability to turn your vmware host into an [...]

]]> By: Home Lab « Virtualised Reality http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/stormagic-svsan-with-high-availability-mirroring/comment-page-1/#comment-776 Home Lab « Virtualised Reality Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:08:21 +0000 http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737#comment-776 [...] Click Here [...] [...] Click Here [...]

]]> By: alanwright http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/stormagic-svsan-with-high-availability-mirroring/comment-page-1/#comment-694 alanwright Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:37:41 +0000 http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737#comment-694 I have been evaluating SvSan and once you get to know the terminology such as pools, devices, plex's it really is easy to master. I found the mapping of RDM's as the guide suggests does not work with vSphere, well at least with an HP E200 or the P400 controller. The RDM is for performance reasons and to be honest I don't think performance will be a huge consideration for a SMB. The disks and controllers of the typical entry system won't really acheive the performance benefits of an RDM and as long as you don't going put a heavy duty transactional SQL databse the limits won't be reached.<br><br>I have tested my E200 with 128mb Battery Backed Cache witha 15K SAS drive (non-raid) and can achieve about 21mb/s with sequential writes as opposed to a standard entry level system which comes with a 64mb cache without any write cache enabled which acheives only 4-5mb/s. I also tried the P400 with the standard 256mb cache without the 512mb battery backed cache and could sill only achieve 6-7 mb/s. Most people don't think to add the cache upgrade but this has huge implications with performance and should always be on the PO with the reseller.<br><br>The good news is because SvSAn allows vmdk's means the drives benefit from not only the portability aspect but you can just have a single RAID array in your system and make the most efficient use of all your storage. the SvSan would normally sit on a RAID1+0 raid with the service console on typical 72GB drives using just 5 or 10% of the space but using vmdk's you can use all the other 90% for the SvSan Array.<br><br>I also like the feature whereas the blocks have to be written to both sides of the mirror before the OS gets acknowledged that the file has been written to disk, this makes it truly a synchronise storage system. I would definitely use the SvSAN in production and would probably use some kind of archiving/backup strategy such as veeam backup or vRanger in the background to complete the solution. I have been evaluating SvSan and once you get to know the terminology such as pools, devices, plex's it really is easy to master. I found the mapping of RDM's as the guide suggests does not work with vSphere, well at least with an HP E200 or the P400 controller. The RDM is for performance reasons and to be honest I don't think performance will be a huge consideration for a SMB. The disks and controllers of the typical entry system won't really acheive the performance benefits of an RDM and as long as you don't going put a heavy duty transactional SQL databse the limits won't be reached.

I have tested my E200 with 128mb Battery Backed Cache witha 15K SAS drive (non-raid) and can achieve about 21mb/s with sequential writes as opposed to a standard entry level system which comes with a 64mb cache without any write cache enabled which acheives only 4-5mb/s. I also tried the P400 with the standard 256mb cache without the 512mb battery backed cache and could sill only achieve 6-7 mb/s. Most people don't think to add the cache upgrade but this has huge implications with performance and should always be on the PO with the reseller.

The good news is because SvSAn allows vmdk's means the drives benefit from not only the portability aspect but you can just have a single RAID array in your system and make the most efficient use of all your storage. the SvSan would normally sit on a RAID1+0 raid with the service console on typical 72GB drives using just 5 or 10% of the space but using vmdk's you can use all the other 90% for the SvSan Array.

I also like the feature whereas the blocks have to be written to both sides of the mirror before the OS gets acknowledged that the file has been written to disk, this makes it truly a synchronise storage system. I would definitely use the SvSAN in production and would probably use some kind of archiving/backup strategy such as veeam backup or vRanger in the background to complete the solution.

]]> By: alanwright http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/stormagic-svsan-with-high-availability-mirroring/comment-page-1/#comment-600 alanwright Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:37:41 +0000 http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737#comment-600 I have been evaluating SvSan and once you get to know the terminology such as pools, devices, plex's it really is easy to master. I found the mapping of RDM's as the guide suggests does not work with vSphere, well at least with an HP E200 or the P400 controller. The RDM is for performance reasons and to be honest I don't think performance will be a huge consideration for a SMB. The disks and controllers of the typical entry system won't really acheive the performance benefits of an RDM and as long as you don't going put a heavy duty transactional SQL databse the limits won't be reached.<br><br>I have tested my E200 with 128mb Battery Backed Cache witha 15K SAS drive (non-raid) and can achieve about 21mb/s with sequential writes as opposed to a standard entry level system which comes with a 64mb cache without any write cache enabled which acheives only 4-5mb/s. I also tried the P400 with the standard 256mb cache without the 512mb battery backed cache and could sill only achieve 6-7 mb/s. Most people don't think to add the cache upgrade but this has huge implications with performance and should always be on the PO with the reseller.<br><br>The good news is because SvSAn allows vmdk's means the drives benefit from not only the portability aspect but you can just have a single RAID array in your system and make the most efficient use of all your storage. the SvSan would normally sit on a RAID1+0 raid with the service console on typical 72GB drives using just 5 or 10% of the space but using vmdk's you can use all the other 90% for the SvSan Array.<br><br>I also like the feature whereas the blocks have to be written to both sides of the mirror before the OS gets acknowledged that the file has been written to disk, this makes it truly a synchronise storage system. I would definitely use the SvSAN in production and would probably use some kind of archiving/backup strategy such as veeam backup or vRanger in the background to complete the solution. I have been evaluating SvSan and once you get to know the terminology such as pools, devices, plex's it really is easy to master. I found the mapping of RDM's as the guide suggests does not work with vSphere, well at least with an HP E200 or the P400 controller. The RDM is for performance reasons and to be honest I don't think performance will be a huge consideration for a SMB. The disks and controllers of the typical entry system won't really acheive the performance benefits of an RDM and as long as you don't going put a heavy duty transactional SQL databse the limits won't be reached.

I have tested my E200 with 128mb Battery Backed Cache witha 15K SAS drive (non-raid) and can achieve about 21mb/s with sequential writes as opposed to a standard entry level system which comes with a 64mb cache without any write cache enabled which acheives only 4-5mb/s. I also tried the P400 with the standard 256mb cache without the 512mb battery backed cache and could sill only achieve 6-7 mb/s. Most people don't think to add the cache upgrade but this has huge implications with performance and should always be on the PO with the reseller.

The good news is because SvSAn allows vmdk's means the drives benefit from not only the portability aspect but you can just have a single RAID array in your system and make the most efficient use of all your storage. the SvSan would normally sit on a RAID1+0 raid with the service console on typical 72GB drives using just 5 or 10% of the space but using vmdk's you can use all the other 90% for the SvSan Array.

I also like the feature whereas the blocks have to be written to both sides of the mirror before the OS gets acknowledged that the file has been written to disk, this makes it truly a synchronise storage system. I would definitely use the SvSAN in production and would probably use some kind of archiving/backup strategy such as veeam backup or vRanger in the background to complete the solution.

]]> By: Thomas Leavitt http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/stormagic-svsan-with-high-availability-mirroring/comment-page-1/#comment-693 Thomas Leavitt Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:19:21 +0000 http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737#comment-693 @ivobeerens They've released a version that supports vSphere 4.x<br><br>@Jaap - if you read the release notes, you'll see that FT isn't supported.<br><br>I'm implementing this for a client. In production now. Aside from a macro issue with supporting iSCSI targets on top of a vmfs datastore (which all software based storage solutions have), for which VMware is lagging on getting a fix out, we haven't seen any huge issues yet (crossing fingers). @ivobeerens They've released a version that supports vSphere 4.x

@Jaap – if you read the release notes, you'll see that FT isn't supported.

I'm implementing this for a client. In production now. Aside from a macro issue with supporting iSCSI targets on top of a vmfs datastore (which all software based storage solutions have), for which VMware is lagging on getting a fix out, we haven't seen any huge issues yet (crossing fingers).

]]> By: tvleavitt http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/stormagic-svsan-with-high-availability-mirroring/comment-page-1/#comment-599 tvleavitt Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:19:21 +0000 http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737#comment-599 @ivobeerens They've released a version that supports vSphere 4.x<br><br>@Jaap - if you read the release notes, you'll see that FT isn't supported.<br><br>I'm implementing this for a client. In production now. Aside from a macro issue with supporting iSCSI targets on top of a vmfs datastore (which all software based storage solutions have), for which VMware is lagging on getting a fix out, we haven't seen any huge issues yet (crossing fingers). @ivobeerens They've released a version that supports vSphere 4.x

@Jaap – if you read the release notes, you'll see that FT isn't supported.

I'm implementing this for a client. In production now. Aside from a macro issue with supporting iSCSI targets on top of a vmfs datastore (which all software based storage solutions have), for which VMware is lagging on getting a fix out, we haven't seen any huge issues yet (crossing fingers).

]]> By: Jaap http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/stormagic-svsan-with-high-availability-mirroring/comment-page-1/#comment-692 Jaap Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:59:29 +0000 http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737#comment-692 Hi Gabe,<br><br>I 'm seaching for a software iSCSI solution and I 've read this interesting review. As I understand SvSAN supports HA, vMotion and DSR. You mentioned VMs running on a host that crashes will be restarted.<br>Although this is true for HA with FT, as I understand it with vMotion this shouln't happen?<br><br>With regards,<br><br>Jaap<br>Netherlands<br><br>PS. <br>I 'm running a testlab on Intel i7 host. Is it correct that FT/HA can't be tested? Hi Gabe,

I 'm seaching for a software iSCSI solution and I 've read this interesting review. As I understand SvSAN supports HA, vMotion and DSR. You mentioned VMs running on a host that crashes will be restarted.
Although this is true for HA with FT, as I understand it with vMotion this shouln't happen?

With regards,

Jaap
Netherlands

PS.
I 'm running a testlab on Intel i7 host. Is it correct that FT/HA can't be tested?

]]> By: Jaap http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/stormagic-svsan-with-high-availability-mirroring/comment-page-1/#comment-507 Jaap Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:59:29 +0000 http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737#comment-507 Hi Gabe,<br><br>I 'm seaching for a software iSCSI solution and I 've read this interesting review. As I understand SvSAN supports HA, vMotion and DSR. You mentioned VMs running on a host that crashes will be restarted.<br>Although this is true for HA with FT, as I understand it with vMotion this shouln't happen?<br><br>With regards,<br><br>Jaap<br>Netherlands<br><br>PS. <br>I 'm running a testlab on Intel i7 host. Is it correct that FT/HA can't be tested? Hi Gabe,

I 'm seaching for a software iSCSI solution and I 've read this interesting review. As I understand SvSAN supports HA, vMotion and DSR. You mentioned VMs running on a host that crashes will be restarted.
Although this is true for HA with FT, as I understand it with vMotion this shouln't happen?

With regards,

Jaap
Netherlands

PS.
I 'm running a testlab on Intel i7 host. Is it correct that FT/HA can't be tested?

]]> By: Review van StorMagic’s virtuele SAN oplossing « EarlyBert http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/stormagic-svsan-with-high-availability-mirroring/comment-page-1/#comment-505 Review van StorMagic’s virtuele SAN oplossing « EarlyBert Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:42:09 +0000 http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737#comment-505 [...] Zie Gabrie’s weblog voor mhttp://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737eer. [...] [...] Zie Gabrie’s weblog voor mhttp://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737eer. [...]

]]> By: ivobeerens http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/stormagic-svsan-with-high-availability-mirroring/comment-page-1/#comment-691 ivobeerens Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:12:21 +0000 http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=737#comment-691 Is VMware ESX 3i/4i already supported? Is VMware ESX 3i/4i already supported?

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