Dell R710 Perc6i what choice in virtual disks.

[Nonofr91]

Good morning,
I'm completely new to installing proxmox and would like to see some advice on the choices I need to make.
I have a Dell R710 with a perc6i and 8 HDDs (2x 146Gb 10k, 1x 146Gb 15k, 5x1Tb 7.2k).
Should I opt for 3 VDs (one typical HDD part)? but I don't secure my disks. or a VD raid 5 for the 3 146Gb HDDs and 1VD raid 5 for the other HDDs? or even all in VD raid 0 and zfs but seems not to be advised in the doc (do not use zfs with a hardware raid controller.

to give the context of future use of the server, it will run applications such as mail, Nas, and business applications for a small business that needs to start.

Thanks in advance for all the help.

 

[milew]

If you want to use ZFS, do not create a virtual disk through the controller. Find out how to set up these drives in JBOD mode and then create a ZFS pool under Proxmox.

 

[Nonofr91]

Thank you for your answer.
unfortunately the perc6i controller does not manage the no raid jbod.
I read in other forum threads that it was possible to do raid 0 for each disk in the bios and do zfs in proxmox. but I understood that the performance would be much slower.
This is why I ask myself these questions.
it might be better to do a raid 5 even if the 15k will be penalized but I could secure this volume.
Another possibility would be to make a cluster and secure with HA on the other node.
Could someone confirm the performance loss of hardware raid and zfs.

 

[milew]

Setting up RAID 0 on each of the disks still relies on controller management. Personally, I wouldn't recommend such an approach. Instead, it's worth considering hardware solutions offered by the Perc controller or replacing it with one that supports JBOD/HBA.

If you have the option to build a cluster, it's definitely worth doing so. Even without high availability (HA), it will make maintenance tasks on the hosts much easier.

 

[Nonofr91]

thanks again
So I'm ultimately thinking of making two Raid5 VDs.
one for the 146 Gb where I would put the OS and the ISO bank. and another VD raid 5 with 1TB for VMs and LXC.
what will be the most secure in the time to create a 3 node cluster with ceph (I would see this depending on the hardware I have. otherwise 2 nodes and an NFS)

Does this seem correct to you?

 

[donhwyo]

If I remember right perc 6 is 3GB. You could get an h200 or similar for $20 and get 6GB. I think it will work in the storage slot too.
FYI

 

[Nonofr91]

Good morning
Thank you for alerting me to the issue of transfer speed. I had not included this aspect even if I cannot confirm the 3 Gb speed of the perc6i by reading the documentation.
I will therefore look for an H200 HBA.
with this in mind, what disk partitioning do you recommend considering the different speeds and capacities of my HDDs?

 

[donhwyo]

I have a dell r715. Same age as your r710 but amd. Don't know if your disks are 3 or 6 so can;t guess. I use 2 old 10k drives in a dell mirror and 4 ssd in zfs raid 10. Never tested the threw put but works well.

 

[Nonofr91]

I just checked my drives are 6G. and the perc6i is effectively 3Gb/s. I have 144GB of ram on the R710 which allows me to do everything in zfs to simplify disk monitoring (rather than mixing dell raid and zfs like you). I saw a DELL H200 HBA with cables for €30 on ebay, which suits me. I will therefore wait for its delivery and I will install proxmox by choosing raidz1 for the small 146 GB hdds and a raidz1 pool for the 1TB. I would look later for an internal SSD supported by the H200 for swag and logging. I am waiting for the delivery of another R710 (2x500GB) and an R520 (2x300GB + 3x4TB) in the coming days to consider a cluster.

 

[donhwyo]

I installed proxmox at version3 or 4, long before zfs boot was an option. I would use it if I need to reinstall.

Good luck

 

[Nonofr91]

actually the more I read the more I don't know how to do it.
I will follow your advice, a 1 hardware raid with a dedicated backup disk with the 3 146GB HDDs and the 1TB in zfs and in OSDs when the cluster is operational.