How do you collect IOPS?

[evangrimmett]

I know I must be missing something, but what's the easiest way to collect IOPS from an entire ESX host? I've got a customer that needs a new SAN, and I want to make sure it's sized correctly. I know how to pull it from within a Windows VM, but I really only care about the entire ESX host and don't want to go through the headache of doing each VM.

[boydd · Accepted solution]

From the commad line - run "esxtop" and use the "d" (disk option). You'll be able to see the IOPS then.

DB

VMware Communities Moderator

[RParker]

How do you collect IOPS?

You can use ESXtop for live IOPS or use this for benchmark of a VM on ESX to get the MAX IOPS: http://www.iometer.org/

[mcowger]

How do you collect IOPS?You can use ESXtop for live IOPS or use this for benchmark of a VM on ESX to get the MAX IOPS: Well, givemn that he's trying to size for a specific application thats already there, it wouldn't make much sense to size his array/system for a synthetic benchmark, now would it.

--Matt

[evangrimmett]

Ok, so boydd got the answer to what I asked, but I guess what I really should have asked is:

Is there any way to see historical IOPS for an entire ESX host or LUN?

When doing SAN sizing it's important to size based on the actual customer usage, not what the VMs are capable of (so running IOMeter won't really do me any good as that will just tell me what the current SAN can do, not what it's been doing). Guess I'll have to dig into the current SAN and see if there is a way to get any reporting on what it's been seeing as far as IOPS go...

[boydd]

Depending on the FC Switches - you may be able to get some stats from there. If you have time - maybe run a new collection to get the stats (15 days etc....). You can also capture and parse the esxtop data to an excel file (-p?).

DB

VMware Communities Moderator

[evangrimmett]

iSCSI environment

[boydd]

Try getting the logs from the etherenet switches then. They will show totals for the time of the logs. Worth a try.

DB

VMware Communities Moderator