We will probable reroute from VMware to Proxmox too and the SAN topic makes me headache. We will need to buy additional storage, however I cannot find anything really about the Blockbridge. No reviews, no independent opinions, no configuration guides, nothing. No prices.
New cluster - storage solution
- Thread starter dignus
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I believe you have to contact them (Website, Contact email) with your requirements & they will get back to you.
So do I.
But that is probably difficult for them, since their structure is complicated AFAIK. In the end I believe its @per TB + subscription. I've never used them, but have only heard good things from others.
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I highly recommend contacting them if you have a real need and budget for storage. They are a legitimate company that provides high-quality solutions and support. It is not a boxed product that you just buy off the shelf. Storage is generally complicated. Blockbridge will help with design, configuration, installation, and HA validation. They also perform remote installs.
There have been quite a few positive comments regarding Blockbridge in this forum. They have solutions for high-end configurations, including OpenStack, Kubernetes, VMware, and Proxmox, which is likely why you see little in terms of reviews (it's not for home-labbers). They have a proper Enterprise product for datacenter applications. They monitor the health of systems remotely and respond to critical issues 24/7. So it's not just a boxed product but also a service (not SaaS—they provide support and monitoring). You aren't going to pick this up at CDW or Newegg...
When it comes to pricing, my own experience is that Blockbridge offers a very fair price for the solution's performance, quality, reliability, support, and functionality. Software and support are priced per TB per month. There are several different tiers and pricing models to fit different deployment scenarios. They are very transparent on the pricing. I think the sheer flexibility of their pricing is why it's not just on their website. It is not a low-cost product, but what robust storage solution with good support is? We have been through every nightmare scenario with other solutions (at least 5 of them), and I can say, without a doubt, that I would buy Blockbridge every time now and ignore other solutions on the market. I'm never willing to take the risk again. FWIW, we run CEPH for cheap and deep (i.e., object storage) and Blockbridge everywhere where performance and reliability matter.
Regarding documentation, they have extensive documentation and tuning resources for Proxmox in their knowledge base (I think there are links on their main webpage). That being said, their solution seamlessly integrates with Proxmox. You don't even have to interface with their system once installed. From my own experience, everything works flawlessly in PVE.
Looking back at this post, I initially responded about a year ago. I can update you that another year has passed with 100% uptime on all our deployments, including Proxmox.
It all sounds good, unfortunatelly, it will compete with Synology UC3200/UC3400 which we have currently as the storage for VMware cluster. Finally, I am a bit afraid at the end the VMware will be still cheaper paired with Synology, then Proxmox with Blockbridge ....
why is that unfortunate? if you were intending to use your existing storage devices, you should have asked about that instead; yes, the UC3200/3400 will work fine with proxmox albeit without thin provision/snapshot support. If you were asking seriously, all relevant data is available on their website, price notwithstanding.
Hello everyone,
May I add a quite specific question to this thread?
I'd like to know, if blockbridge also supports snapshot trees like in lvm-thin. What I mean by that is that you go back to a previous snapshot and start a new snapshot chain on top of an existing one.
We do a lot of vm testing and have to jump back and forth between snapshots so that would be a nice feature for us.
Thank you very much!
May I add a quite specific question to this thread?
I'd like to know, if blockbridge also supports snapshot trees like in lvm-thin. What I mean by that is that you go back to a previous snapshot and start a new snapshot chain on top of an existing one.
We do a lot of vm testing and have to jump back and forth between snapshots so that would be a nice feature for us.
Thank you very much!
Hello Chrizzlibaer,
Blockbridge supports thin snapshots, thin clones from arbitrary snapshots, and rollback, which should be enough to implement this feature. However, their plugin restricts snapshot trees.
If this is important to your workflow, you can manage it by hand by creating thin clones from snapshots. Otherwise, I would request the features. These guys are exceptionally responsive.