New Build for iscsi for xenserver

[ojthecat]

I am building a box to house storage for a couple xenserver boxes (free edition) via iscsi
and would love to get some feedback before I make any rookie mistakes.

I will be running 4 windows server 2008r2's with very light load and one 2008r2 with small a lot of small writes to a sql database.

Here are the parts that I have for the freenas box:

Mother Board: Supermicro X9SRL-F-B (has 2 Intel 82574L Gigabit nics)
CPU: Intel Xeon Six-Core Processor E5-2620 2.0ghz
Memory: 2x Samsung DDR3-1600 16GB ECC/REG Samsung Chip Server Memory (32 gig total)
Power Supply gold 500w


Controller IBM M1015 reflashed
Drives 7 or 8 Red WD 3tb



I really only need about 3 TB total storage but would like to run the most redundant raid level.
Should I add a pair of ssd's for zil etc
Do you see any gotcha's with my configuration?

After this box is up I would like to add another box for replication but that can wait till later.

Thanks for looking
Robert

 

[justgosh]

I am building a box to house storage ... via iscsi...

CPU: Intel Xeon Six-Core Processor E5-2620 2.0ghz

AN ISCSI DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
By Hui Xiong, Renuga Kanagavelu, Yaolong Zhu, and Khai Leong Yong
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.74.2260&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Page 105
"The hardware configuration of the iSCSI target includes a 64-bit/133MHz PCI-X
motherboard with 2.4GHz P4 processor and 512M RAM. The iSCSI initiator is
implemented on a 64-bit/66MHz PCI motherboard with 2.4GHz P4 processor and
256MB RAM. Intel PRO1000F GE network interface cards (NICs) are used at both
iSCSI initiator and target. All experiments are based on Redhat Linux 8.0 (kernel
version 2.4.20). TCP network performance of the system is tested by netperf. Result
shows that throughput can reach 939.8Mbps with maximum 70% CPU utilization."

 

[jgreco]

The referenced paper isn't going to be helpful because FreeNAS and ZFS tend to take more resources, but offer the potential for substantially more flexibility.

I don't see anything generally wrong with the OP's original proposal. Might want to wait and see on the ZIL though.