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Re: [PLUG] help me design my server
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On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:50:34 -0400 (EDT), "W. Chris Shank" <shankwc@acetechgroup.com> wrote:
> I need to spec-out and architect another VMWare and/or Xen VM host server.
> Currently I have one with 8 cores, 4GB ram, and 1.5TB HDD as 4 500GB SATA
> with hardware raid5. We are starting to hit the wall with this setup
> running 5 VMs on it. Particularly, it seems the HDD I/O is the bottleneck.
> If one VM hits the disks hard it makes the others pretty much useless.
>
> So I have a budget to get another honking server. I'm confident the
> quad-core Xeons with the vm extensions are sufficient. I'll go ahead and
> bump the RAM to 16G too. The area I'm most concerned with is the disk I/O.
> I'm thinking that instead of one big RAID5, I'll pair smaller drives - so
> i'll have 4 sets of 2 250G SATA mirrors. Then direct it so that 2-3 VMs are
> on each raid. Or should I go SCSI and keep one large RAID5?
>
> So if you had the $$, what would you get and how would you configure it.
>
> Thanks
>
> --
> W. Chris Shank
> ACE Technology Group, LLC
> www.myremoteITdept.com
> (610) 640-4223
Chris,
The biggest help you will find with RAID is to move away from RAID5. You will get substantially better throughput with RAID 1+0 or 0+1 than with RAID5. Depending on the utilization of each VM or group of VMs, having multiple arrays may be beneficial. You should also consider multiple RAID controllers, as long as you have sufficient bus bandwidth to handle them.
--Matt
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