shared-storage suggestions

[Freemind]

Hi,

we want to build a new shared-storage for a 4-node pve-cluster. Now we're unsure about best performance. I think RAID-10 is faster than RAID-50, but could ZFS(RAID-Z2) might be better?

Currently we use a hardware-RAID from adaptec with 14 HDDs à 3TB and 4x 250SSD in maxCache as RAID50. Performance is ok, but rebuild takes days and slows down the performance.

If RAID-10 is the way to go, how would you implement SSD-Cache in Linux without Hardware-RAID?

Please post your suggestions, thank you beforehand!

greetings,
freemind

 

[udo]

Hi,
I have tried ZFS-Raid-Z2 and the performance is much lower (on my test hardware) than an hardware raid (raid 6 and raid 10 of course too).
The load of the server goes up during IO...

And you can't expand raid-z2 (only with another raid-z2). I decide for the old-style hardware raid.

Udo

 

[LnxBil]

Of course ZFS is slower in comparison to RAIDx with respect to raw peformance, but you get so many (!!) advantages like compression, snapshots, send/receive, clones, check-summing (best feature ever!), etc. So depending on your workload it can be much faster and much safer than good-old-RAID.

The problem you face is also how to get the ZFS to your cluster. Normally, a cluster has to have high availability everywhere, from the storage up, so ZFS does not fit into this picture.