Intel P3700 for VSAN

[lbcis]

I was in the middle of designing a VMware VDI cluster and will likely use VSAN.

I just saw Intel releasing their new P3700 PCI-E card last week. I know the S3700 is on the HCL --- any reason to think the P3700 would not be (now if not eventually?) Its too new for me to find anything concrete.

I was hoping to drop some in a group of HP DL380p servers and call it a day. Seems like a great card for this type of solution.

Thoughts?

[zdickinson]

Anecdote:  While the P3700 may be working right now, it's been my experience that over time hardware not on the HCL will eventually experience issues.  Day 1 post = It's not on the HCL, but it's working well.  Day 147 post = I moved all my production workload to vSAN!  I know my controller isn't on the HCL, but it worked yesterday!!!  Thank you, Zach.

[JCunningham53]

I've been told the P3700 is undergoing qualification; expected to be late June.....

Jeff

[Bleeder]

Thank you for the update.  I've had some P3700's collecting dust for nearly a year..

[arielsanchezmo1]

I asked on when the NVMe, specifically the Intel P3700, was going to be officially supported for VSAN in the "what's new in vsan 6.0" vBrownbag Rawlinson Rivera did not so long ago -  he said the Intel NVMe official support for VSAN was due out very soon - so start dusting them off

http://professionalvmware.com/2015/05/vbrownbag-follow-up-whats-new-in-vsphere-6-vsan-w-rawlinson-ri...

minute 56:20 :smileygrin:

[beeguar]

Great update. Thanks!

[masotsuka]

I found P3700 in this whitepaper.

Virtual SAN 6.0 Performance: Scalability and Best Practices
https://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10459

very Excited!

[Bleeder]

That appears to be the same tease of a whitepaper that was published over 3 months ago.

[thorolason]

Anyone know how to get some information from the cards. isdct (datacenter tools) seems to be only available for rpm based linux and windows.

vmware smart is not detecting that much

/bin # esxcli storage core  device  smart get  -d naa.65fdfe40353131363030474231503201

Parameter                     Value     Threshold  Worst

----------------------------  --------  ---------  -----

Health Status                 N/A       N/A        N/A 

Media Wearout Indicator       N/A       N/A        N/A 

Write Error Count             0         N/A        N/A 

Read Error Count              0         N/A        N/A 

Power-on Hours                N/A       N/A        N/A 

Power Cycle Count             50331656  N/A        N/A 

Reallocated Sector Count      N/A       N/A        N/A 

Raw Read Error Rate           N/A       N/A        N/A 

Drive Temperature             30        N/A        N/A 

Driver Rated Max Temperature  N/A       N/A        N/A 

Write Sectors TOT Count       N/A       N/A        N/A 

Read Sectors TOT Count        N/A       N/A        N/A 

Initial Bad Block Count       N/A       N/A        N/A

[masashi_ito]

No way from esxi to get isdct info such as storage wear indicator or to do firmware updates. Need to put the host into maintenance mode and boot up a linux persistent live-cd or something similar, install isdct onto it and go from there.

[arielsanchezmo1]

Someone from Intel confirmed to me there is a driver issue for the P3700 that's actively being worked on by both Intel and VMware - thus why we don't see it in the HCL yet.

He did not say all details he sent were public info, so I won't put it here; but if you are wondering if you are just not seeing it, this post will help you know it's still not ready

[Bleeder]

Had to return my P3700's.. accountants complained that they had not been put in service for over a year.  Good thing they had not been opened yet.

Meanwhile, the P3608's have been announced:

https://communities.intel.com/community/itpeernetwork/blog/2015/09/23/intel-dc-p3608-ssd-intel-s-new...

15 months and still counting..

[arielsanchezmo1]

Very nice - uses the whole x8 PCIe bus.

What I got from Intel in VMworld is that a bug had delayed the P3700 certification for VSAN. They're still trying to hammer it out between Intel and VMware.

Note it does appear in the HCL for things like Flash Cache (consequently can be used for PernixData), it's just not certified for VSAN.

I also heard the next thing Intel will release is 3D NAND, before finally moving to 3DXP memory - and we will see block storage on DIMM factor in the future.

It's fun to watch, but like Bleeder said ... it can't take this long.

[JohnNicholson]

Stayed tuned here.  Should hopefully have something soon. (And we will get a new category on the VSAN VSG for NVMe)

[vb2000]

Does anyone have an update on when we can expect the P3700 card to be on the HCL for Virtual SAN?

[elerium]

I saw the 400GB 2.5" P3700 is on HCL about a week or so ago. VMware Compatibility Guide: ssd

Hoping HHHL format will also be included in HCL along with all the larger capacity P3700s soon. Also don't see a driver listed. I've been using the Intel driver so far instead of Inbox NVME.

[arielsanchezmo1]

I just received this from my Intel rep

https://communities.intel.com/community/itpeernetwork/blog/2015/12/01/intel-is-the-first-to-official...

They are now officially supported for VSAN.