Best scenario to user a storage with ESXi and Linux VM

[marcelovvm]

I'm looking forward to discussing my file server architecture. Today I have the following scenario: 1 Windows 2008R2 server as AD, 1 Windows 2012R2 server as fileserver and a 27TB storage connected via iSCSI in Windows 2012R2 (NTFS file system). Both Windows servers are VMs hosted on an ESXi 6.0U3. Today this fileserver hosts something around 12TB of my company's daily use files.

We are in the migration project of our infrastructure from Windows to Linux and this is a good time to rethink this architecture. So I set up 2 possible scenarios and would like to share with you and discuss the best performance-focused architecture:

Scenario 1: Storage concatenated via iSCSI directly on Linux (the ESXi VM) and formatted with EXT4;

Scenario 2: Storage connected via iSCSI in ESXi and creation of a VMTK with 27TB (using VMFS-5) attached to Linux VM.

In both cases the contents of the storage will be shared using SMB for more or less 150 Windows stations.

Live long and prosper,

Marcelo Magalhães

[continuum]

just my 2 cents from my recovery point of view ....
If I had to select one of your 3 options I would definetely stick to what you use now.

In my experience NTFS is the best choice when you look for a reliable filesystem that can survive power failures and other problems.

Do not use VMDKs as large as 27 TB - and if you really must use such extralarge vmdks create them as eager zeroed thick and write down the mapping after creation.

Otherwise beware of power failures - one incident and your 27TB may be gone ...