Disk speed

[francisaugusto]

Hi,
I really need to increase the speed of my NAS. I want to do VM backup, but I feel things are just too slow when I do that.
My setup today is a pool with one vdev:

1 x MIRROR | 2 wide | 7.28 TiB

I have only 8 slots, so I was thinking about having 2x mirrors with 3 disks each. But I was wondering: is it overkill? Would I be better off with 3x mirrors with 2 disks each? That way I'd have more speed and performance right? I just don't know if having having just one disk that I can afford to loose per vdev is good enough protection.

Or should I just have one mirror with two disks, both SSD's, and add it to another pool?

 

[joeschmuck]

Well, the problem you are saying is the transfer of your VM backup is too slow. Do I have that correct?

Your VM backup is likely not a lot of small files but likely a few small files and possibly several large files.

What you have not provided it your network connectivity, the network speed, the speed of the computer running the VM. Lots of things.

Now lets say I make a few assumptions...
1) You have one computer running ESXi and you have it running TrueNAS VM.
2) You also have other VM's on the system you want to back up to the TrueNAS VM.

You should be using I think it's called VXNET3? as your virtual NICs and connect those within ESXi. The transfer speed will be significant.
If you are transferring over a 1Gb NIC, you have found your bottleneck.

Provide more details, what speed tests you have conducted. You have not provided enough data for anyone to really formulate a good answer.

Hopefully I answered your question but that was a long shot.

 

[francisaugusto]

Well, the problem you are saying is the transfer of your VM backup is too slow. Do I have that correct?

That's correct. Actually, the biggest problem is that it also renders the other VM's or NFS transfers super slow while it is backing up.

Your VM backup is likely not a lot of small files but likely a few small files and possibly several large files.

What you have not provided it your network connectivity, the network speed, the speed of the computer running the VM. Lots of things.

This is mostly 10Gbps. You see, the VM's are on an SSD datastore on the same machine as the TrueNAS is installed (it is virtualized)

Now lets say I make a few assumptions...
1) You have one computer running ESXi and you have it running TrueNAS VM.
2) You also have other VM's on the system you want to back up to the TrueNAS VM.

That's my case.

You should be using I think it's called VXNET3? as your virtual NICs and connect those within ESXi. The transfer speed will be significant.
If you are transferring over a 1Gb NIC, you have found your bottleneck.

No, everything is internal, so net speed is not a problem.

Provide more details, what speed tests you have conducted. You have not provided enough data for anyone to really formulate a good answer.

Hopefully I answered your question but that was a long shot.

Thanks for your reply. I believe it is my setup - only one VDEV - that makes writing those files extremely slow when snapshotting and copying a VM.

 

[joeschmuck]

No, everything is internal, so net speed is not a problem.

VMXNET3 is an internal virtual NIC and ultra fast between VM's.

I do not understand how you can transfer data into a TrueNAS VM without the use of a virtual NIC. I'm not the ESXi guru, I learned it via the school of hard knocks so if there is a way to transfer data into a TrueNAS VM without a NIC (virtual or real), I'm all ears. I like learning new things and this would be a good thing for me to learn, and to play with.

 

[francisaugusto]

VMXNET3 is an internal virtual NIC and ultra fast between VM's.

I do not understand how you can transfer data into a TrueNAS VM without the use of a virtual NIC. I'm not the ESXi guru, I learned it via the school of hard knocks so if there is a way to transfer data into a TrueNAS VM without a NIC (virtual or real), I'm all ears. I like learning new things and this would be a good thing for me to learn, and to play with.

Sorry, there is a misunderstanding here. I do use VMXNET3. What I meant is that since everything is internal, it is not "just" 1gbit - it is all 10gbit on the link speed. In other words, I am not transferring things over a 1Gbit NIC.

 

[joeschmuck]

Sorry, there is a misunderstanding here. I do use VMXNET3. What I meant is that since everything is internal, it is not "just" 1gbit - it is all 10gbit on the link speed. In other words, I am not transferring things over a 1Gbit NIC.

So we are kind of talking the same thing, but I'm not sure if VMXNET3 is limited to 10Gbit, I think the speed is dependant on the system speed but I very well could be wrong, I'd have to research that a bit more. Either way, I agree it could be your pool layout causing a bottleneck for you.