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Docjowles posted:135266304 is evenly divisible by 4096. And so should be fine? https://kb.netapp.com/index?page=content&id=3011193&pmv=print&impressions=false If the netapp lun was configured in a way to correct for the OS doing misaligned writes, and then the OS was configured correctly, you will have misaligned writes again. Two rights make a wrong I suppose. 90% of the time I ever had real performance issues on a single lun, it was due to something being misaligned. Then again, the other suggestion that your DBA is possibly just a crybaby is also just as likely. You should be able to show disk queueing and latency statistics to see if there is actually a problem.
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Oct 29, 2015 00:44
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SQL log activity will always show misaligned IO due to the small transaction size, so if your logs and data are sharing a LUN you won't necessarily be able to determine proper alignment with the lun alignment command. I'd just look at latencies and see if anything out of the ordinary is going on. What version of ONTAP is the controller running?
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Oct 29, 2015 15:51
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Also ensure that you've properly delegated permissions to the service account that the instance is running under: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175935.aspx (Note that the article is relevant for MS SQL Server 2008 and up).
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Oct 29, 2015 16:34
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I am going to get serious judgement here, but I bear in mind that I am only experiment with stuff right now. I am new to SANs. As aforementioned in some of my posts, we're looking for a way to cluster 1-3 VMs. I have an SMB share using Storage Spaces. The server has 32GB RAM and a decent Xeon processor. I have done some benchmarks using Crystal Disk Mark on various VHDX files, and benchmarks look network limited on the random read / writes. My client is happy for me to spend a bit of money to experiment if it saves buying a 'proper' SAN. At the moment, the network is only gigabit. I am not a fan of doing things on the cheap, and my business would certainly profit more from selling them a SAN, but I can't help but feel interested in purchasing a few SFP+ 10G network cards and installing them into the existing VM servers, and the pseudo-SAN to see what kind of figures I get that way. If nothing else, it is a rare opportunity for me to get a budget to pretty much gently caress around with things and see how they play out. But is this a massive waste of money? Is there anything else I should be buying? I don't really understand what a SAN is doing any differently than having a decent processor, RAM and NIC in it. Obviously the storage spaces could be replaced with a RAID card if needed. As for the requirements, the school has one database, and I was thinking of storing the data for that on a separate area of SSD storage, as the database is ~2GB and unlikely to grow too much. It's not like the staff or students need lightening fast access to their data. Mostly just reliable access.
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Nov 2, 2015 12:40
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Fruit Smoothies posted:I am going to get serious judgement here, but I bear in mind that I am only experiment with stuff right now. I am new to SANs. So by '1-3 VMs' do you mean virtual machines or virtual hosts? If you only need a hand full of VMs, a SAN is complete overkill. Assuming you are using Hyper-V due to the mention of VHDX files, just load that server up with some fast (10-15k RPM) SAS drives and a RAID controller for a RAID10 setup and be done. Or if the VMs aren't that big, 4 enterprise class SSDs in RAID10. Otherwise you are trying to cluster 3 hosts and that is a different story. What does the whole environment look like in terms of CPU and Memory utilization?
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Nov 2, 2015 13:40
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mayodreams posted:So by '1-3 VMs' do you mean virtual machines or virtual hosts? If you only need a hand full of VMs, a SAN is complete overkill. Assuming you are using Hyper-V due to the mention of VHDX files, just load that server up with some fast (10-15k RPM) SAS drives and a RAID controller for a RAID10 setup and be done. Or if the VMs aren't that big, 4 enterprise class SSDs in RAID10. There are ultimately going to be 3 virtual servers, with two physical hosts in a cluser. Their usage is currently very low, as they pretty much do AD, DNS and SMB. There is an exchange server, but I am reluctant to virtualise that at this stage because I don't think they're going to have it for long, and it's pretty beefy. If this seems reasonable, I don't see a getting RAID controller being a problem. Do you think I need 10G network? Or would a dedicated, separate gigabit storage network do it?
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Nov 2, 2015 13:52
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Fruit Smoothies posted:There are ultimately going to be 3 virtual servers, with two physical hosts in a cluser. Their usage is currently very low, as they pretty much do AD, DNS and SMB. There is an exchange server, but I am reluctant to virtualise that at this stage because I don't think they're going to have it for long, and it's pretty beefy. 1Gb would be fine for a three-host setup.
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Nov 2, 2015 13:57
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What indication do you have that IO is network-limited?
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Nov 2, 2015 13:59
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Sounds like your current Storage Spaces server is a single box, so no high availability in case of failure? Host raid cards also degrade performance when doing raid 5/6. An enterprise NAS/SAN will address those issues and also provide useful functionality on top of better reliability and performance.
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Nov 2, 2015 17:34
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cheese-cube posted:1Gb would be fine for a three-host setup. Yeah, wouldn't bother with 10g here.
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Nov 2, 2015 18:02
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NippleFloss posted:Sounds like your current Storage Spaces server is a single box, so no high availability in case of failure? Host raid cards also degrade performance when doing raid 5/6. An enterprise NAS/SAN will address those issues and also provide useful functionality on top of better reliability and performance. Yeah there is a single point of failure with the storage space, as AFAIK there's no real network RAID for Windows. You may then ask why I am even bothering with clustering? Well, mostly because another basic server isn't expensive, and it at least prevents against hardware failure to some degree. I am not sure what performance, reliability or functionality my setup could get from a SAN, but I'm happy to listen. I could even replace the data hard drives with the new Samsung SM863 SSDs, and the cost would be lower than a SAN. To what degree does a SAN have higher reliability than any other server?
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Nov 2, 2015 18:05
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You're generally paying to always eliminate single points of failure: Things like dual controllers and redundant data connection paths, two switches, two+ hosts in a cluster, etc. A real san is also probably going to be better about abstracting the storage volumes from the physical disks, so it will be more flexible for spacing/sizing/expansion in the future than a typical plain old raid array will. It's not necessarily that the actual hardware is that much more reliable, it's just that you get a specialized OS with storage specific features, lots of redundancy, and typically very good support in case bad things happen.
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Nov 2, 2015 18:28
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You need to evaluate your io needs. Maybe some Linux vms running gluster and exporting nfs will solve your problem.
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Nov 2, 2015 18:37
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Gwaihir posted:You're generally paying to always eliminate single points of failure: Things like dual controllers and redundant data connection paths, two switches, two+ hosts in a cluster, etc. Thanks for this. I guess my main concern is reducing points of failure in items that aren't readily replaced. There's an IT distributor that's a 45 minute drive, and it would be trivial for me to quickly buy a replacement PSU, switch, network card etc. However, it would be less easy to buy an entire server. The joy of storage spaces is that I can stick the drives in any decent windows PC (even off the shelf if need be) and it'll run OK until a longer-term is found. I guess I am less worried about uptime than I am long periods of down time. I'll check out gluster though for sure.
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Nov 2, 2015 18:44
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So we inherited another department's equpment and I am a happy recipient of an unexpected EqualLogic PS6100 and some 6224 switches; maybe not the latest and greatest; but wont hurt to have operational. I'm reading through the documentation, and am looking for what I think is pretty stupid clarification:  Just trying to confirm (looking only at one card for now, say controller 0) Ports 1 and 3 should be on a separate subnet from ports 2 and 4. Setting up for MPIO and iSCSI exactly as configured here; but nowhere does the Dell docs have anything about subnet configuration for MPIO
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Nov 5, 2015 14:11
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Walked posted:So we inherited another department's equpment and I am a happy recipient of an unexpected EqualLogic PS6100 and some 6224 switches; maybe not the latest and greatest; but wont hurt to have operational. For EQL all members of the same group should have their ports connected to the same subnet.
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Nov 5, 2015 17:04
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NippleFloss posted:For EQL all members of the same group should have their ports connected to the same subnet. Thanks! Was just coming back to say I found that information in some other discussion after enough googling. Much appreciated!
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Nov 5, 2015 17:22
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Threw me the first time I saw it too. Makes a lot more sense when you notice that the switches are stacked.
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Nov 5, 2015 20:23
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Apparently, this is a thing: http://www.kernsafe.com/product/wince-iscsi-initiator.aspx I know I've struggled for the countless times I needed to attach a LUN to my Windows Mobile device.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:00
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Wince is an accurate description. For content, has anyone got any experience with AeroFS (https://www.aerofs.com/solutions/server-replacement/)? We're looking for a product that can ease the transition from "files go on a file share" to  but without people having to adjust to everything being in a webpage or selective folders syncing locally as it's too much of a head gently caress for a lot of people. We've previously sold Egnyte but frankly the pricing gets insane quite quickly and the product is poo poo - the major selling point of the local file server that is a replica of the cloud stuff is a piss-poor Linux appliance with Samba running and can't proxy local storage until you get to the really expensive enterprise stuff.The AeroFS product looks good and seems to be well polished, and we will probably evaluate it, but if it's going to be a huge waste of time it would be good to know early on.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:56
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mayodreams posted:Apparently, this is a thing:
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Nov 6, 2015 00:18
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Vulture Culture posted:They misspelled their own company name in the graphic at the bottom Look, they're a technology company, not a spelling company.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:26
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Walked posted:Setting up for MPIO and iSCSI exactly as configured here; but nowhere does the Dell docs have anything about subnet configuration for MPIO You might find this page handy. http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/storage/w/wiki/3615.rapid-equallogic-configuration-portal-by-sis
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Nov 6, 2015 01:03
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Does anybody have any experience with Small Tree for video production workflows? We're building a centralized storage system for our production department (I had posted about some QNAPS previously which we abandoned). We don't have an onstaff IT/Network guy so we're looking at a turnkey solution. It was brought to my attention, but that's above my knowledge or paygrade so I thought I'd just ask here to see if there were any immediate "no stay far away!"s. Also they said that dual port 10GbE was unnecessary in the Windows environment and that single port 10GbE cards would be sufficient (there will be 4 to 6 systems connected at any given time and doing 4K editing off of the system). Thanks! https://www.small-tree.com/
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Nov 13, 2015 00:03
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BonoMan posted:Does anybody have any experience with Small Tree for video production workflows? I've never heard of them over here (although we're EMEA and looks like they are NA focused) but they're small and everything they sell is OEM gear (not that that is massively unusual). Unfortunately the Video/Broadcast industry is chock full of lovely companies that look like this pushing lovely oem storage servers, and not doing anything particularly clever, with terrible support. In general if they're focused on the industry (where in general outside of the big houses there's not a lot of storage admins) it raises red flags automatically for me. Doubly so if they've had a posh stand at NAB or IBC. There is nothing in small volume video workflows that is generally problematic for more or less any vendor's basic storage systems, however 4K might be a more interesting challenge. There are a few factors like what tool you're using (fcp/premiere/avid) and what you're outputting, and the number of concurrent edits and assets involved.
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Nov 13, 2015 01:25
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Looks like it was a rough quarter for Nimble. Transitioning out of the startup phase and getting to stable growth and profitability is tough, especially given how competitive the storage market is. They need to add something compelling to stay relevant long term relevant, I think. http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/11/19/nimble-plunges-31-as-q4-rev-view-misses-by-a-mile-ceo-cites-enterprise-disappointment/
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Nov 20, 2015 05:22
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NippleFloss posted:Looks like it was a rough quarter for Nimble. Transitioning out of the startup phase and getting to stable growth and profitability is tough, especially given how competitive the storage market is. They need to add something compelling to stay relevant long term relevant, I think. Good for us I guess, since we badly need to update our CS240's that are getting hammered in our datacenter, maybe we can get a good deal! Now if only they would loving release the 2.3 firmware so I can bring VVOLs into our prod datacenter and manage everything through the web client 
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Nov 20, 2015 06:29
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What's the market look like at the moment for entryish-level NAS with some resiliency built in, and perhaps a bit of auto-tiering? This is for situations where a SAN and then running file services on a VMware cluster is going to blow the budget. Is it a couple of Dell/HP boxes running 2012R2 clustered storage spaces on top of some shared SAS enclosures? Or is NAS the sort of task where NetApp shines?
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Nov 20, 2015 21:13
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If all you are doing is serving up files Synology is starting to get pretty fancy. If you are looking for something to virtualize on top of check out something like the Dell PowerVault MD3200 (non-iSCSI). It is a DAS that allows up to 4 hosts via SAS in an HA arrangement. Let's you skip ISCSI switches and is simple to maintain. I personally would not put a virtual environment on an entry level SOHO NAS.
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Nov 20, 2015 23:35
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It's not to virtualise at all, it's just the next step up from a Synology appliance. I have reservations around Synology's HA (it takes minutes to fail over) and the support isn't what I'd get from Dell for example. I get scared with multiple TB on something like that for no real justifiable reason, it's a trust thing I guess.
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Nov 20, 2015 23:47
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In that case I'd see what everyone else says. To me if you are just serving up files and the budget doesn't allow for much more, Synology may be hard to beat unless you roll your own. Waiting a few minutes for HA to kick in shouldn't be a deal breaker at that price level. Otherwise maybe cloud storage is the way to go in this instance?
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Nov 21, 2015 01:32
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The requirements are nowhere near set in stone, the price can go beyond Synology pricing but this is storage where vendors will list kit perfect for SMB or branch offices and it will start at $100,000 which is more than double what this project has allocated. I can sort of see it being a shootout between the VNXe3200 and the FAS25xx at this point but I need to nail down some requirements first.
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Nov 21, 2015 01:47
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Thanks Ants posted:The requirements are nowhere near set in stone, the price can go beyond Synology pricing but this is storage where vendors will list kit perfect for SMB or branch offices and it will start at $100,000 which is more than double what this project has allocated. I can sort of see it being a shootout between the VNXe3200 and the FAS25xx at this point but I need to nail down some requirements first. You should probably just get whichever is cheapest out of the NetApp and VNXe. I'm partial to NetApp and EMC was just bought by Dell, so who knows what's happening there, but either will serve files just fine.
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Nov 21, 2015 06:43
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NippleFloss posted:Looks like it was a rough quarter for Nimble. Transitioning out of the startup phase and getting to stable growth and profitability is tough, especially given how competitive the storage market is. They need to add something compelling to stay relevant long term relevant, I think.
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Nov 21, 2015 13:15
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adorai posted:lol at 37% growth yoy being disappointing. wall_street.txt
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Nov 21, 2015 13:18
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adorai posted:lol at 37% growth yoy being disappointing. At some point growth needs to translate into profitability. That was meant to be next year and the company and its investors were predicating their strategy on turning a profit in 2016. Their current situation and revised forecast mean that likely won't happen. They are using capital to buy market share, but that only works as long as capital sticks around. Their stock is down to 10 a share, so for the moment the capital is spooked. They can't actually turn a profit just selling to the mid-market because the margins aren't there, and they are having trouble breaking into the enterprise. Anecdotally, they're getting their lunch money stolen by Tegile in the PNW. They need something compelling to get people on board, the storage market is too crowded and "pretty fast and relatively cheap" isn't a winning play by itself anymore.
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Nov 21, 2015 20:20
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I guess great support, ease of use are blasé as well. I'm gonna ask for a blowjob on our next array purchase
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Nov 21, 2015 22:06
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Nitr0 posted:I guess great support, ease of use are blasé as well. I'm gonna ask for a blowjob on our next array purchase I can send my Nimble rep you way. He's a nice guy.
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Nov 21, 2015 22:13
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Nitr0 posted:I guess great support, ease of use are blasé as well. I'm gonna ask for a blowjob on our next array purchase For enterprise accounts, yea, kind of. They spend enough money to get great support from almost anyone and ease of use is less critical when you can afford to have storage experts on staff. That ease of use often comes at the expense of additional flexibility too, and for those larger accounts they may like flexibility. Their competition has done a lot to close the ease of use gap as well.
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Nov 22, 2015 00:03
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Nitr0 posted:I guess great support, ease of use are blasé as well. I'm gonna ask for a blowjob on our next array purchase
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Nov 22, 2015 01:05
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