Which RAID card for ESXi (with SSD caching)?

M

MrReplay

n00b
Joined
Mar 24, 2012
Messages
41
Hi guys,

I haven't used this forum much but was hoping for some advice / experience from anyone who might see this...

I built an ESXi whitebox back in March based loosely on Tinkertry's

I am now at the point where I would like to get a RAID card - I would like something affordable, definitely with SSD caching & if possible battery powered backup (not essential)

Tinkertry uses the LSI 9265-8i, which is out of my price range (for now) - I would like to spend in the region of £150-300


What do people here recommend / use?

I have been looking at the Adaptec RAID 6405E, which supports caching (as far as I can see?), but no battery backup..

[edit] can I be sure the card above would work in an ESXi scenario with SSD caching feature??

Any help appreciated!!!

thanks, Nick :cool:
 
Last edited:
Could anyone tell me the impact in relation to loss of data - in the event of a power cut - using SSD caching without a battery backup?
 
Eh, since it's a lab I wouldn't worry too much, but I'd never do it in production without on. Where lopoetve? I thought he would've instantly responded to a 'no battery backup' post quicker than this :p
 
maybe a older lsi 9260 on ebay instead of the 9265 - I found the IBM m5015 (same as the 9260, even flashed it to the lsi firmware, for about $300 US).
 
Your data loss is the same with SSD caching compared to any other write caching. In other words, if you are lucky, the cached data was written. If you are unlucky, complete loss of data or file corruption.

I'm curious about why you want SSD caching for an ESX server but I think the best approach is to buy a motherboard that supports SSD caching if you think you need it. You'll get almost zero benefit except at vm deployment or startup.
 
MrReplay said:
Could anyone tell me the impact in relation to loss of data - in the event of a power cut - using SSD caching without a battery backup?
Click to expand...

"kaboom"

Anything in the DRAM cache will be lost. Uncommitted writes will be lost, but they'll have been acked. Bad things will happen.

Got backups?
 
QHalo said:
Eh, since it's a lab I wouldn't worry too much, but I'd never do it in production without on. Where lopoetve? I thought he would've instantly responded to a 'no battery backup' post quicker than this :p
Click to expand...

lawl. Been busy!

BBWC helps at the card layer, but anything sent to the SSD (remember, they hold the data in DRAM until they find a cell to stash it in) will not be helped :)

UPS! BBWC! Enterprise SSD!

happy now? ;)
 
that Adaptec does not support SSD caching. Avoid PMC controllers and go with LSI.
The SSD CacheCade activation key will run you $250, a used LSI 2108 controller will cost about $150.

We just skip SSD caching. On our tier 1 servers, replaced all our spindle drives with SSD and use 1GB DDR2 SAS controller.
As a technology, SSD caching is just a temporary bandaid until Solid State overtakes all Mechanical drives.
 
As far as SSD goes an intel 320 is probably the most affordable choice for a cache drive with minimal write DRAM cache and capacitors to finish writing in event of power failure.
 
bloodypulp said:
that Adaptec does not support SSD caching. Avoid PMC controllers and go with LSI.
The SSD CacheCade activation key will run you $250, a used LSI 2108 controller will cost about $150.

We just skip SSD caching. On our tier 1 servers, replaced all our spindle drives with SSD and use 1GB DDR2 SAS controller.
As a technology, SSD caching is just a temporary bandaid until Solid State overtakes all Mechanical drives.
Click to expand...

i've been looking to implement this for a VMware implementation. are you by chance running this config for a virtualization install? if so are you using consumer or enterprise SSD cache? How's performance?

Thx,
-T
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top