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VRTX - Raid Configuration
I have a few questions regarding configuration of a Raid array on a VRTX with (2) M620's and vcenter 5.5
- Is there any recommedations on setting up a new raid array in a VRTX? Alot of websites seem to state Raid 10, others state Raid 6, still others Raid 5.
- Stripe size? 64k seems to be the default but I have read that larger strip size is better
- does 128K work
- We have 12 drives. Should all the drives be used in one raid array and hence one virtual drive or should there be multiple raid arrays with multiple virtual disks
vCenter will mostly host about 10VM's uning linux and windows server.
I know that the confifuration depends upon a multitude of factors, I am just curious of what others are doing.
Thanks in advance for your time
Clay
DELL-Chris H
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March 12th, 2015 09:00
Claykinney,
You are correct in stating there are a lot of factors to decide. First off, the Raid configuration. With the different Raid levels you will see different IOPS (Input/Output Per Second) performance. The Raid 10 will have the highest IOPS of the three, followed by the Raid 6. Where as the Raid 5 is the worst of them. Now that being said the flip side of that is that the Raid 10 will also give the least space, for the most disks. Due to half the total disk space will go to redundancy. So there is no true win/win, just the best balance of performance to space.
With the Stripe size you are basically deciding if you want better speeds on writing larger files or smaller. 64k is the best balance between the block sizes for both sizes. If you are more concerned about the speeds regarding the larger files, then you would want to increase the stripe size. Dealing with the smaller files, with a larger stripe size you would will increase seek times and decrease performance. So when dealing with both on average, the 64k would be the best balance for performance.
You can do a large array if you like, but I would recommend splitting them up to decrease write times, and give the ability that if an array does fail, you will not have all the data inaccessible. The proverbial eggs in one basket theory.
Hope this helps answer some of your questions.