New Installation on Dell server

[xdm]

Hi, I have a Dell R740 with PERC H730P RAID Minicontroller with 4GB Cache . There are two virtual disks in RAID-10 with Block Size 512bytes (should i change the block size?). The disks are SSD. On this i want to run windows server 2019 with mssql database VMs (transfered from esxi). What is the best configuration for performance, which is the best format type (ext4 or what?)and what is the best storage type (local, local-lvm or local-lvm-thin)? Should i install the Proxmox on these virtual disks or is it better to install it on a usb stick?

 

[Johannes S]

You might to read following for making most of the windows vm:
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Windows_2019_guest_best_practices
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Paravirtualized_Block_Drivers_for_Windows

In terms of performance you might want to do some benchmarks with the possible options, their differences are explained in the wiki:
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Storage

I personally would ditch the hardware RAID (aka configuring the RAID controller to IT-Mode if possible) to use ZFS- based hardware raid and ZFS advanced features. If you don't want this (which is absolutely fine, ZFS advanced features come with a performance pennalty) it depends on your usecase and which features (snapshots, shared storage etc) you want to use or not.
Whether one use ext4 or xfs for the operating system and local storage filesystem is mainly personal preference. There are differences (iirc xfs is faster and supports larger devices but you need to have a lot of data to notify it, do your research and maybe some benchmarks if this matters to you) but I doubt that you will notify them.
In terms of performance using object block storage (local-lvm or local-lvm-thin) is better than file based storage so you should use lvm or lvm-thin for the vm and container disks and the local storage just for the stuff which can't be stored in the object block storage.

HTH

Edit: It's called block storage, not object storage

 

[xdm]

Thank you for your response!
So, you propose to convert RAID mode to HBA mode on Dell PERC. Then will i "control" the controller during installation and use ZFS? Will it be possible to use cache write back (i have another dell server with PERC H755 that supports it)? And what is the "best" block size that i could use?

 

[Johannes S]

Thank you for your response!
So, you propose to convert RAID mode to HBA mode on Dell PERC. Then will i "control" the controller during installation and use ZFS? Will it be possible to use cache write back (i have another dell server with PERC H755 that supports it)? And what is the "best" block size that i could use?

It's what I would do since I like to use ZFS due to its other features and ZFS and hardware RAID don't play well together.

However I'm not an storage or RAID expert so take this with a grain of salt.

If your Controller has a cache not using ZFS in favour of Hardware raid propably will perform better.

Hopefully someone with more knowledge in terms of storage will chime in on regards to your questions on Block size and file systems.

Block storage for vms is the way to go in any case

 

[LnxBil]

In terms of performance using object storage (local-lvm or local-lvm-thin) is better than file bases storage

Minor correction: block storage, not object storage (in the realm of S3-like storage, which is currently not supported by PVE). You used it in your next comment correctly, so this has to be some form of typo.

Will it be possible to use cache write back

No, ZFS does not work that way and that is the main reason why you don't mix RAID controllers and ZFS. ZFS needs to be sure that actual written data (from the filesystem perspective) is written to disk. write back cache does interfere with this.

If you want to use your RAID controller inlcuding the cache device, I'd go with either LVM-thin or ext4 with QCOW2 to have thin-provisioning and snapshots.

 

[Johannes S]

Minor correction: block storage, not object storage (in the realm of S3-like storage, which is currently not supported by PVE). You used it in your next comment correctly, so this has to be some form of typo.

You are right, thanks for the correction. I will edit my posts