From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Thu Jul 9 14:03:44 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 035F39967FF for ; Thu, 9 Jul 2015 14:03:44 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from paul@kraus-haus.org) Received: from mail-qg0-f50.google.com (mail-qg0-f50.google.com [209.85.192.50]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "smtp.gmail.com", Issuer "Google Internet Authority G2" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id BA54B12B9 for ; Thu, 9 Jul 2015 14:03:43 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from paul@kraus-haus.org) Received: by qgef3 with SMTP id f3so65673758qge.0 for ; Thu, 09 Jul 2015 07:03:41 -0700 (PDT) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:content-type:mime-version:subject:from :in-reply-to:date:content-transfer-encoding:message-id:references:to; bh=RLlEw2GjBW3xyAMJA40bKRi6iWyYmqoVWYZogHJAATI=; b=M+IzYrFUF6X7I8NXhOoavhhY0Z3ubgm51Gti208SnVgIIREkK7zq0g6OXprSTB3TPB P1OXjOMclwMT8mkeJE1589XrAyYBjXHPoYirZ4NL1ptdMv71Oi2QjbTQcLEOCmiT4vlg rVv2UhuQCaxMNkFCFA4xxAwyNE6gCKJWQIpJkTrJpLxkohQs6RGQgwsMxteBAPuo433F VQ+LuV/dKet7Csf/xbCz635vcQ9nMy8R75fr/RTK5IDHmTTjOW8v7liymsVS6d9eP58n SBIk8ySWNbKfnAcWu8pvaJDrmISzHjTmCTpVYqhJDLM+jQeUFHccxUv9SnPTvYlqygHq gvHg== X-Gm-Message-State: ALoCoQmxmzKfPqXy17MGztSpF+59YU6WKhP9mv+ApuS3yzEGzRRntO984bTs0Z4vRVhduMhKsU+v X-Received: by 10.140.42.247 with SMTP id c110mr24323041qga.100.1436450308056; Thu, 09 Jul 2015 06:58:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mbp-1.thecreativeadvantage.com (mail.thecreativeadvantage.com. [96.236.20.34]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id g81sm3568749qhc.8.2015.07.09.06.58.26 (version=TLSv1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Thu, 09 Jul 2015 06:58:26 -0700 (PDT) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 7.3 \(1878.6\)) Subject: Re: Gmirror/graid or hardware raid? From: Paul Kraus In-Reply-To: Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2015 09:58:27 -0400 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <334E67CD-AA5D-44B7-AA01-9AC690118E29@kraus-haus.org> References: To: freebsd-questions X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1878.6) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2015 14:03:44 -0000 On Jul 8, 2015, at 15:49, Mario Lobo wrote: > I'm building a server that is going to host VMs for a small e-commerce > site. It's mainly going to be used for testing new solutions/improving = the > current site (on the cloud at this moment) but in the medium to long = run, > the idea is to hold the production site in it. > Since I don't have any experience in running VMs for e-commerce, I = don't > know for sure if my plan is correct or even feasible. >=20 > I want to use FBSD 10 as the host OS and the VMs will run under = Virtual Box. I have been using FBSD / VBox to host both development and production = sites for about 3 years now. None are E-commerce, but some are a pretty = heavy load. > It should be a Dell 430 server (or IBM equivalent) CPU Xeon E5-2630 = with 4 > 2T SATA HDs/16 G Ram/ RAID PERC H730 controller (supported by mesas). I am very, very rarely CPU limited. My biggest throttle is a combination = of Internet connection and disk I/O. > All VMs will run FBSD also with usual Apache/php/Mysql combination. >=20 > I really would welcome suggestions/opinions on what would be the most > efficient way to set up those HDs to hold these virtual disks. >=20 > I thought about zfs but I won't have lots of RAM avaliable. Should I = use > the controller raid? Gmirror/Graid? What raid level? That=92s a tough one=85 A caching RAID controller can make a huge = difference in disk performance, but you also run the risk of silent data = corruption and I have never been really happy with the tools to monitor = HW RAID controllers. With limited RAM the performance of ZFS can suffer. = Does the PERC controller have an NVRAM cache and can it be setup one = drive per presented volume ? I have down that and then used the = presented volumes in a ZFS pool. My latest VM server is an older Supermicro with 2 x X5550 CPU and 80 GB = RAM (the last 16 GB to get to 96 was backordered when I needed to build = it) and 4 x 500 GB WD RE series drives. Since I don=92t need much space = per VM, one pair of the drives is a ZFS mirror for the OS and the other = pair is a ZFS mirror for the VMs. I would really rather stripe/mirror = across multiple disks for the VM images, but the chassis only has 4 = drive slots. This configuration is very fast for FBSD guests as well as = Linux and Windows (Yes, I need them all). But, my biggest concern with E-commerce would be the Internet = connectivity and some type of fault tolerant load balancing. My highest = profile production sites run on SmartOS instances out at Joyent. We are = _hoping_ to have enough business in the next year to justify moving our = own servers into a Tier-1 CoLo, but we can=92t justify the cost (yet)... -- Paul Kraus paul@kraus-haus.org