Best build with available hardware

[ugur_be]

Hi,

I m new in promox and would like to build virtual enveriment for my little office.

My office have +/- 25 people working on accounting program , and microssoft office everyone is connection to windows server 2016 with teminal server and remote app .

We have some old hardware that i want to use to build our Virtual enveriment :

2 x ( HP DL380 G6 - 2x cpu x5650 @2,80 GHZ with 8* 4GB RAM ) ( 8 slot of 2,5" HARD DRIVE ) - ( 1x hp 410p with 1gb cache + 1x hp P812 with 1gb cache)
1 x ( HP DL380e G8 - 2x cpu E5-2450L @ 1,80GHZ with 8*16gb ram ) ( 14 slot for 3,5" hard drive) - ( 1x hp H220 )
1 x ( HP DL380e G8 - 1x cpu E5-2430 V2 @ 2.5 ghz with 2*8gb ram) ( 8 slot for 3,5" hard dirive - ( 1x hp 420p with 1gb cache)

hard drive available :

10 x 2TB HP 7200RPM SATA 3,5"
8 x 1TB HP 7200RPM SATA 3,5"
6 x 2TB HP 7200RPM SAS 3,5"
8 x 1TB HP 10000RPM SAS 2,5"
7 X 120GB SSD drive sata 2,5"
2 x 1TBGB SSD drive sata 2,5"
2 x 500gb SSD drive sata 2,5"

What i want to do i to make a smooth enveronement with no lag and secure backup to save our important data.

What the best way to do with all of this hardware? is using ZFS file system with normal sata drive and ssd cache will have no diferrence than runnon vm on SSD?

Best Ub

 

[aaron]

Some hints because in the end you have to see what works for you.

If you want to use ZFS do NOT use the internal RAID controllers. ZFS and RAID controllers don't like each other. Even the HBA mode on those older HP servers is not really usable. Invest a bit in real HBA controllers like the H220 that you have in the one server. Best flash it to IT mode.

The RAM might be a bit low except for the one server if you want to run ZFS and a few VMs on it. This brings me to the next topic. If you plan to use some SSDs as cache for ZFS make sure you have enough RAM. The cache metadata needs it's share of the RAM and if you already are low on RAM you will actually make the situation worse.

 

[ugur_be]

Hi,

Thank your for your advice

Can i configure each disk in raid 0 to be a stand alone, single disk raid0? That way i could pass each "disk" into ZFS. It'd be dumb, but it'd "work" too ?

 

[aaron]

Don't. The issue is the caching and the RAID controller trying to be smart and getting in the way of ZFS. Also replacing a disk if it fails is so much harder this way. H220 HBAs are actually not that expensive.

 

[ugur_be]

OK thank u
I did order from ebay 2 extra H220 in IT mode , hope the HP FAN will not start to make to much noise...