My first home esxi aio server

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WyRoX

n00b
Joined
Jun 20, 2016
Messages
2
Hello Guys,

I’ve been doing a bit of reading of the forum over the couple of days and have found a lot of fantastic information. I don’t know what to do with my concerns about the VM storage.

My plan was to build an esxi aio server with napp-it to host a number of VM’s for testing/certs and media files.

I’m finally decided to purchase the following items:

CPU:
Intel Xeon E5-2630L v4
RAM:
2x Crucial DIMM 32GB, DDR4-2133, CL15, reg ECC (CT32G4RFD4213)
MB:
Supermicro X10SRH-CLN4F retail (MBD-X10SRH-CLN4F-O)
Chassis:
Fractal Design Define R5 Black
PSU:
be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 650W ATX 2.4 (BN251)
ESXi storage:
Mach Xtreme Technology MX-ES 8GB
Media storage:
RAID 5 with 3x 8TB WD Red


And here my concerns about the VM storage:

1) RAID 10 with 4x 4 TB WD Red Pro

2) RAID 1 with 2x 1 TB Samsung Evo and RAID 10 with 4x 4 TB WD Red Pro

3) RAID 10 with 4x 4 TB WD Red Pro with an SSD for ZIL/SLOG

VM's are:
1) AD,DC
2) MSSQL
3) StreamingServer
4) owncloud
5-8) SharePoint 2013/2016
9) Sophos UTM Home


Which storage configuration has a good performance?
Should I use other HDDs?
What would you recommend for the napp-it vm storage?

I have a budget between 2500€ and 3000€ for the whole aio server. (The media storage is not included)
I don't wanna calculate the storage too small because of future needs.

So, I hope you can give me any suggestions for my VM storage :)

Cheers
WyRoX
 
You shouldn't run consumer SSDs in a RAID 1. Moving cache to a SSD is also not advised as it would just kill the drive early. I would recommend option 1, just a RAID 10 with the drives. I've used WD Black drives in the past, looked into the Red Pro drives you listed and can't see a reason to avoid them. Can't comment on napp-it, haven't used it.
 
I would use two pools, one from SSD only (can be a mirror ex two 480GB SSD) without Slog
and a disk based pool for media, general filer and backup.

Best SSDs are enterprise SSDs from Intel or Samsung (PM/SM 863) with powerloss protection.
If you use consumer SSDs, use better ones with a higher overprovisioning ex Sandisk extreme Pro
 
Thank you for your advise.

What is with the Samsung Pro series?
Can I use the Intel SSD 540s for the napp-it storage?

I don't know if I really need SSDs with power loss protection because I have no important data on it. Everything can be recreated from backups.
 
I'm using a pair of Intel 535 240GB in a mirror for VM storage, shared over 10GbE via NFS. No power loss protection but the rack has a UPS so it wasn't necessary.
 
No problem with Samsung or Intel.
I would prefer slightly MLC over TLC or SSD with a higher overprovisioning in a server -
either per default like server SSDs or the Sandisk extreme Pro or with a manual overprovisioning of 5%-10% with a Samsung Pro.
 
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