new TrueNAS build looking for advice for NVME and VMware storage

[curruscanis]

Hello all I am hoping some people can point me in the right direction. I have been reading every scrap of information I can on implementation of a TrueNAS system using NVME pools, specifically in my case for iSCSI vmware block storage. However so much information is out of date or not applicable it is hard to determine what is valid for a new build. I have posted a potential build but have not received any replies as yet.

New production TrueNAS hardware build - Supermicro 24 bay - NVME - VMware iscsi

Hello, and thank you for taking the time to read my post and provide any information. I have a VMware cluster that currently is using a FreeNAS built on a 45Drives systems that is about 4 years old and has been great for our speed and storage needs. We are looking to upgrade our storage...

www.truenas.com

So maybe if I simplify my question.

Is a 24 x NVME build even possible? And if so what is the best hardware to make that happen?

If NVME drives are used, is it still necessary to use mirrored drives in a vdev for performance over another configuration? I realize this is done for pure IOPS in a spinning disk and it has served us very well on our existing FreeNAS with spinning disks but with NVME and their extremally fast performance over traditional hard drives can another ZFS solution be used to increase the overall storage from 25% of raw disk space?

Thank you.

 

[Etorix]

Hopefully @jgreco will chime in, but beside IOPS a reason for using mirrors for block storage is that raidz favours large record size, and takes a significant space penalty when storing small records, as in block storage.

 

[curruscanis]

Thank you for your input, Etorix, I had seen info on size issues but didn't really know if they would impact iSCSI style storage or to what degree, it all seems so unknown given the possible number of scenarios.

 

[jgreco]

I don't have the strength right now. Maybe try one of the other threads where I've done a deeper dive.

96% used, should have been far less ? (how is all calculated ?)

Hello, I am a bit confused, have been migrating data from a physical server with 4 physical data disks, one volume at 2TB per disk (a total of 8TB data formatted as NTFS) My target is a Proliant Microserver with 4 physical 4TB disks, no RAID configured (best handled by ZFS), 10 GB RAM. On this...

www.truenas.com

 

[HoneyBadger]

Allow me to link back an explanation then.

Is RAID10 / mirrored vdevs still the disk layout to choose at all flahs storage servers for esxi??

Dear Community, I used to learn that a RAID10, or in other words "multiple mirrored vdevs", was the disk layout to choose for a zvol at a ZFS-server for deployments as ESXi datastore. Now, time has to come to shift from hybrid pools to all flash storage pools. While I was in contact with one...

www.truenas.com

"It's an older post, sir, but it checks out."

Regarding the free space question, the "50% Free Space" is not a hard and fast rule, but neither is it a binary "Fast/Slow" threshold value.