NFS- SAN - FreeBSD
patrick
gibblertron at gmail.com
Fri Nov 20 18:11:15 UTC 2009
Hi Grant,
I'm in a similar situation to where you were in July, and I was
wondering what route you ended up going?
Patrick
On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Grant Peel <gpeel at thenetnow.com> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> Again, thanks for the info.
>
> I only have one server with a PERC (raid) card installed, and I beleive it
> is an older PERC 3 DCI, and doubt it would do the job. I would not be able
> to add more PERC cards to the other machines.
>
> I am looking to have the connections all done via Ethernet. Again, the
> connections would be local (device to my switch, switch to the individual
> servers).
>
> Does this mean I should be considering iSCSI, or, since the connections will
> all be on a local network, that I can continue to consider NFS?
>
> Any takers?
>
> -Grant
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher J. Umina"
> <chris.umina at studsvikscandpower.com>
> To: "Grant Peel" <gpeel at thenetnow.com>
> Cc: <questions at freebsd.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:01 PM
> Subject: Re: NFS- SAN - FreeBSD
>
>
>> Grant,
>>
>> DAS = Direct-Attached Storage, sorry to be confusing.
>>
>> I cannot personally speak to the performance of FreeBSD's NFS, but I
>> wouldn't expect it to be the bottleneck in the situation described. Maybe
>> others with more experience could chime in on this topic.
>>
>> The way to use a DAS is to connect the DAS to a server with an external
>> SAS cable (or two). The PERC6/E controller you would need inside the server
>> is very well supported in FreeBSD. The DAS system would basically act the
>> same as internal disks would act (in the case of the MD1000). Of course
>> you'll want to check with Dell before you make any purchases to be positive
>> that your hardware will all communicate nicely, as I'm no Dell salesperson.
>>
>> Depending on how large of an array you plan to make (if larger than 2TB)
>> you may have to investigate gpart/gpt to partition correctly, but that's
>> quite simple in my experience.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>> Grant Peel wrote:
>>>
>>> Chris,
>>>
>>> Thanks for the insight!
>>>
>>> I will defineately investigate that DAS ... although I am not (yet) sure
>>> what the acronym means, I am sure it is something akin to "Direct Access
>>> SCSI".
>>>
>>> You are quite right, I would like to use NFS to connect the device to the
>>> 6 servers I have, again, it would be only hosting the /home partition for
>>> each of them. Do you know if there would be any NFS I/O slowdowns using it
>>> in that fassion? Would freebsd support (on the storage device) that many
>>> connections?
>>>
>>> Also, do the Dell DAS machines run with FreeBSD?
>>>
>>> Also, from you you explained, I doubt I really need the versatility of
>>> the SAN at this point, or in the near future. I simply want a mass /home
>>> storage unit.
>>>
>>> -Grant
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher J. Umina"
>>> <chris.umina at studsvikscandpower.com>
>>> To: "Grant Peel" <gpeel at thenetnow.com>
>>> Cc: <questions at freebsd.org>
>>> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 5:43 PM
>>> Subject: Re: NFS- SAN - FreeBSD
>>>
>>>
>>>> Grant,
>>>>
>>>> I mean to say that often times external SCSI solutions (direct attached)
>>>> are cheaper and perform better (in terms of I/O) than iSCSI SANs. Especially
>>>> if you're using many disks. SANs are generally chosen for the ability to be
>>>> split into LUNs for different servers. Think of it as a disk which you can
>>>> partition and serve out to servers on a per-partition basis, over Ethernet.
>>>> That's essentially what an iSCSI SAN does. While DAS systems allow the
>>>> same sort of configuration, they don't serve out over Ethernet, only
>>>> SCSI/SAS.
>>>>
>>>> Since you plan to use NFS to share the files to the other servers, I
>>>> think it may make more sense for you to use a SCSI solution if yo don't need
>>>> the versatility of a SAN.
>>>>
>>>> Of course I know nothing of how you plan to expand this system, but from
>>>> what I understand, with Dell DAS hardware it is possible to connect up to 4
>>>> different servers to the DAS and expand to up to 6 15 disk enclosures. The
>>>> MD3000i (iSCSI) expands only to 3.
>>>>
>>>> Another issue is that without compiling in special versions of the iSCSI
>>>> initiator, even in 8.0-BETA2 (which is not production-ready), iSCSI
>>>> performance and reliability are terrible. There are other versions of the
>>>> code (which I currently use) for the iscsi_initiator kernel module, but
>>>> unless you're comfortable doing that, you may consider DAS in terms of ease
>>>> of implementation and maintenance as well.
>>>>
>>>> Chris
>>>>
>>>> Grant Peel wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Chris,
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't know what a direct attached array is.....
>>>>>
>>>>> What I was just thinking was move all of the servers /home directory to
>>>>> a huge NFS mount.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you have the time to elaborate fursther, I would apprciate it...
>>>>>
>>>>> This iSCSI think has me entrigued, but I must admit I know little about
>>>>> it at this point.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Grant
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher J. Umina"
>>>>> <chris.umina at studsvik.com>
>>>>> To: "Grant Peel" <gpeel at thenetnow.com>
>>>>> Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 11:27 PM
>>>>> Subject: Re: NFS- SAN - FreeBSD
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Grant,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have to ask, is there a reason you're intent on going with a SAN
>>>>>> versus a direct-attached array?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Chris
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Grant Peel wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks for the reply.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I have not used/investigated the iSCSI thing yet....
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The original question is can I just use an NFS mount to the storage's
>>>>>>> /home partition?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -Grant
>>>>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: mojo fms To: Grant Peel Cc:
>>>>>>> freebsd-questions at freebsd.org Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 4:21 PM
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: NFS- SAN - FreeBSD
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You would be better off at least having the SAN on 1gb ethernet or
>>>>>>> even better tripple 1gb (on a 100mb switch should be fine but you need
>>>>>>> failover for higher avaliability) ethernet for latency and failover reasons
>>>>>>> with a hot backup on the network controller. I dont see why you could not
>>>>>>> do this, its just iscsi connection normally so there is not a big issue
>>>>>>> getting freebsd to connect to it. We run 2 of the 16tb powervault which
>>>>>>> does pretty well for storage, one runs everything and the other is a
>>>>>>> replicated offsite backup. Performance wise, it really depends on how many
>>>>>>> servers you have pulling data from the SAN and how hard the IO works on the
>>>>>>> current servers. If you have 100 servers you might push the IO a bit but
>>>>>>> but it should be fine if your not serving more than 2Mb/s out to everyone,
>>>>>>> the servers and disks are going to cache a fair amount of always used data.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 11:52 AM, Grant Peel <gpeel at thenetnow.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I am assuming by the lack of response, my question to too long
>>>>>>> winded, let me re-phrase:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What kind of performance might I expect if I load FreeBSD 7.2 on a
>>>>>>> 24 disk, Dell PowerVault when its only mission is to serve as a local area
>>>>>>> storage unit (/home). Obviously, to store all users /home data. Throug an
>>>>>>> NFS connection via fast (100m/b) ethernet. Each connecting server (6)
>>>>>>> contain about 200 domains?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -Grant
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Grant Peel"
>>>>>>> <gpeel at thenetnow.com>
>>>>>>> To: <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org>
>>>>>>> Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 10:35 AM
>>>>>>> Subject: NFS- SAN - FreeBSD
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Up to this point, all of our servers are standalone, i.e. all
>>>>>>> services and software required are installed on each local server.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Apache, Exim, vm-pop3d, Mysql, etc etc.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Each local server is connected to the Inet via a VLAN (WAN), to
>>>>>>> our colo's switch.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Each server contains about 300 domains, each domain has its own
>>>>>>> IP.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Each sever is also connected to a VLAN (LAN) via the same (Dell
>>>>>>> 48 Port managed switch).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We have been considering consolidating all users data from each
>>>>>>> server to a central (local), storage unit.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> While I do have active nfs's running (for backups etc), on the
>>>>>>> LAN only, I have never attempted to create 1 mass storage unit.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So I suppose the questions are:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 1) Is there any specific hardware that anyone might reccommend?
>>>>>>> I want to stick with FreeBSD as the OS as I am quite comfortable admining
>>>>>>> it,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2) Would anyone reccomend NOT using FreeBSD? Why?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 3) Assuming I am using FreeBSD as the storage systems OS, could
>>>>>>> NFS simply be used?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 4) Considering out whole Inet traffic runs about 2 Mb/s, is
>>>>>>> there any reason the port to the Storage unit should be more than 100 M/b
>>>>>>> (would it be imparative to use 1 G/b transfer)?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> TIA,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -Grant
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> freebsd-questions at freebsd.org mailing list
>>>>>>> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
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>>>>>>> "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -- Who knew
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> freebsd-questions at freebsd.org mailing list
>>>>>>> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>
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