Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2
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@brrabill I think the issue we have had in the past was that by the time something changed, the effect of it had to trickle down and that was a big random thing...
By the time something changes now, short of a complete infrastructure having to be done over, people can adapt quicker. i'm still living and dealing with Non Profits that don't have a server, never heard of virtualization, never heard of voip, and the list goes on.
In some cases, it's better for me to get them completely on Google for Non Profits and work on the infrastructure later. The allotments that Google, Microsoft and other tech companies throw at Non-Profits makes it entirely hard NOT to splurge when funds are available.
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@brrabill said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@scottalanmiller said
This is why RAID 1 + RAID 5 was generally sensible in 1997 and was insane by 2009. The factors behind the decision have changed.
Right but that is 12 years, not 12 hours.
But at some point, there was an inflection point. All things change "at some point in time."
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@dashrender said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@brrabill said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@scottalanmiller said
This is why RAID 1 + RAID 5 was generally sensible in 1997 and was insane by 2009. The factors behind the decision have changed.
Right but that is 12 years, not 12 hours.
Well, Scott did only change to Fedora within the past two years (I think really the past year). For many years before that he was preaching CentOS.
Now of course, at some point he switch, and there would be the 12 hours.. but at least he's been on Fedora for over 6 months for sure, and likely more like a year.
I think to help with that, maybe Scott could produce a quarterly report explaining his thoughts on OS, hardware and software changes that he is using. I trust Scott and his experience. But one thing he made sure he told me is to READ and DO MY OWN RESEARCH
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I remember when I first got my feet wet with Virtualization, if it wasn't for Scott and AJ I would still be behind in times. It's not been an easy road and I definately wished I had my hand held some days but I made it though. I've basically learned how to install and administer Hyper-V, XenServer and VMWare environments. I'm not the absolute best at all of them, but I can basically deploy a small business from start to finish in about a weekend to a week. Do you know how many times I kept changing lol!
I think the most important thing I learned was the general and overall concepts, so that when time for change was upon us, I didn't have to spend a lot of time with my head spinning. I can plan effectively and move once I'm confident.
For me installing stuff on the weekends with crap, helps me. It's my time to break things or learn why I really should or shouldn't do "this" or "that". I off top know SSD's are astronomically faster than spinning rust. I think anyone in IT should by now if they have learned the difference. But for me to "SEE" why it's faster in black and white was profound.
The only time I see spinning rust to be used in my applications is where cost is crazy for hard drives. But with that in mind, I can see more love for me just buying 2 SSD's with the capacity I need and getting a 3rd for hot swap. That isn't too expensive.
I guess this Segways me into another discussion, at what point in one server would you want dual controllers? I see a benefit of tiered storage so I load my vm's on my ssds, but use my backups with spinning rust. But I realize doing that could increase the risk factor.
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@krisleslie said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
I guess this Segways me into another discussion, at what point in one server would you want dual controllers?
Basically never. That's why no one makes this option - it's not a real world option. In the rare cases where you want it, it is on machines so high end that they don't offer controllers so it is all done in software. Remember, hardware RAID controllers are for entry level commodity servers only. Enterprise and mini computers have never had them as an option. Software RAID only in that space.
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@brrabill said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@dashrender said
Well, at some point in mostly recent memory you were all about CentOS, CentOS, CentOS, all about CentOS.
Then at some point you changed to Fedora.
This is the thing I have a hard time wrapping my head around.
Like how we can tell someone that OptionA is the only option out there, and you'd be a moron to go with another option. Then people get behind OptionA, and implement OptionA. Then one day later, it's like yeah only morons use OptionA. OptionB is where it is at.
When can you ever really trust any of the options?
The way I see it is that Fedora is my go to unless some weird applications requires CentOS.
You can only go so long relying on EPEL to fulfill the need that Fedora can provide natively.
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@black3dynamite said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@brrabill said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@dashrender said
Well, at some point in mostly recent memory you were all about CentOS, CentOS, CentOS, all about CentOS.
Then at some point you changed to Fedora.
This is the thing I have a hard time wrapping my head around.
Like how we can tell someone that OptionA is the only option out there, and you'd be a moron to go with another option. Then people get behind OptionA, and implement OptionA. Then one day later, it's like yeah only morons use OptionA. OptionB is where it is at.
When can you ever really trust any of the options?
The way I see it is that Fedora is my go to unless some weird applications requires CentOS.
You can only go so long relying on EPEL to fulfill the need that Fedora can provide natively.
Same here. CentOS is fine, but I'm not going to choose it. Some things, like Zimbra, demand it, so I use it there. But when I have the choice, I'm on Fedora.
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@scottalanmiller said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@black3dynamite said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@brrabill said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@dashrender said
Well, at some point in mostly recent memory you were all about CentOS, CentOS, CentOS, all about CentOS.
Then at some point you changed to Fedora.
This is the thing I have a hard time wrapping my head around.
Like how we can tell someone that OptionA is the only option out there, and you'd be a moron to go with another option. Then people get behind OptionA, and implement OptionA. Then one day later, it's like yeah only morons use OptionA. OptionB is where it is at.
When can you ever really trust any of the options?
The way I see it is that Fedora is my go to unless some weird applications requires CentOS.
You can only go so long relying on EPEL to fulfill the need that Fedora can provide natively.
Same here. CentOS is fine, but I'm not going to choose it. Some things, like Zimbra, demand it, so I use it there. But when I have the choice, I'm on Fedora.
Have you ever install Zabbix successful on Fedora? It works flawlessly on CentOS.
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@black3dynamite said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@scottalanmiller said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@black3dynamite said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@brrabill said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@dashrender said
Well, at some point in mostly recent memory you were all about CentOS, CentOS, CentOS, all about CentOS.
Then at some point you changed to Fedora.
This is the thing I have a hard time wrapping my head around.
Like how we can tell someone that OptionA is the only option out there, and you'd be a moron to go with another option. Then people get behind OptionA, and implement OptionA. Then one day later, it's like yeah only morons use OptionA. OptionB is where it is at.
When can you ever really trust any of the options?
The way I see it is that Fedora is my go to unless some weird applications requires CentOS.
You can only go so long relying on EPEL to fulfill the need that Fedora can provide natively.
Same here. CentOS is fine, but I'm not going to choose it. Some things, like Zimbra, demand it, so I use it there. But when I have the choice, I'm on Fedora.
Have you ever install Zabbix successful on Fedora? It works flawlessly on CentOS.
I haven't done a recent Zabbix install, cannot say.
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Scott with consideration for the total amount of ram, cache, cpu power etc, why is the world still stuck on "hardware raid" ?!?! Seems to me like it needs to die lol.
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@krisleslie said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
Scott with consideration for the total amount of ram, cache, cpu power etc, why is the world still stuck on "hardware raid" ?!?! Seems to me like it needs to die lol.
Because it solves a few important problems:
- It is large profits based off of people not understanding RAID systems. So it's not going anywhere for business reasons.
- It enables simple separation of duty between IT and bench staff. No IT needed for disk replacements.
- It allows systems like VMware ESXi, Citrix XenServer that lack software RAID and systems like Hyper-V that have no good software RAID to still work well.
- It allows simple cache mechanisms to be made available to staff that could not configure it safely in software.
- It allows for low cost work arounds to unreliable power systems.
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Wish Google would fix this problem
but seriously, thanks for your help. I have clarity now on the matter. -
@krisleslie 
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@scottalanmiller thats when i use the SATA spinning rust!!!! I almost cried!
Luckily the SSD got me better
Question should I use LVM or EXT ?
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@krisleslie said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@scottalanmiller thats when i use the SATA spinning rust!!!! I almost cried!
Luckily the SSD got me better
Question should I use LVM or EXT ?
LVM and XFS most likely. The installers can be a little confusing if you don't know about how LVM works. https://mangolassi.it/topic/11302/travis-hershberger-linux-lvm-storage
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@travisdh1 so XenServer will let me do that 3rd option?! Never heard of it and Iām about to google it.
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@krisleslie said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:
@travisdh1 so XenServer will let me do that 3rd option?! Never heard of it and Iām about to google it.
Oh, XenServer? Yeah, you want EXT then. Only option that allows thing provisioning in XenServer, also one of the reasons XS has fallen out of favor around here.
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Ok gonna nuke it and redo it as EXT
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Hell im anxious to see how fast my work cluster is cause this is crazy at home
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So when I first install XenServer and I "tick" thin provisioning, behind the scene it's making the drive ext, so I assume if I didn't choose thin provisioning it would have made it LVM?
