Jim82's Posts

Addition: Extremely weird problem now. When running a disk test with my freshly created RAID10, the speeds are perfect (350MB/s read | 300 write). BUT as soon as the VMDK files are present ... See more...
Addition: Extremely weird problem now. When running a disk test with my freshly created RAID10, the speeds are perfect (350MB/s read | 300 write). BUT as soon as the VMDK files are present on the datastore, the speeds of the drive decreases drastically(see above screenshots). This with NO running VM's other than the test VM and all background initialization of the RAID10 completed. Never seen anything like it....
Dear community, I'm currently running ESXi 5.5U1 on a Supermicro X9-SRL. I use a LSI 9260-8i RAID controller for all my datastores. Main main datastore is a 4 x 3TB RAID10, consisting of ... See more...
Dear community, I'm currently running ESXi 5.5U1 on a Supermicro X9-SRL. I use a LSI 9260-8i RAID controller for all my datastores. Main main datastore is a 4 x 3TB RAID10, consisting of WD RED series drives. For some odd reason I can't understand, I'm experiencing 3 times faster WRITE speeds, than read speeds My other drives on the same controller, performs as expected. I've tried everything to resolve this issue, without luck. Here's what I've done: * Recreated the array * Tried a new firmware * Tried latest ESXi driver(VIB) * New SAS cables * New controller * New battery and cache module (BBU) * Re-initialize the array * Re-learn the cache and BBU * New ESXi installation * Removing other drives from controller * Running a full drive check (6+hours pr. drive) on all drives, no errors detected * Tried running disks as RAID5, this shows the same issues All without luck. The only way to reach slightly higher read speeds is to change the "Disk cache policy" to "No Read Ahead", but speeds are still way less then expected. Please have a look at my attached screenshots, maybe I'm overlooking something. Thanks Jim
Hello James, You are most welcome! I believe that best vMotion practices requires the storage to be "central". I think you're limited to the below options: A) Have a centralised storage ... See more...
Hello James, You are most welcome! I believe that best vMotion practices requires the storage to be "central". I think you're limited to the below options: A) Have a centralised storage infrastructure ie. SAN/NAS B) Take advantage of the new vMotion starting from ESXi 5.1 I believe that you can actually migrate VM's using only local storage, but the destination must have it's own local storage with enough space for the VM(s). You must use the web client for it to work properly though. BR Jim
Hi James, My final solution involved a battery backed RAID controller supported by ESXi 5.5. I'm now running only VMFS, no Storage Spaces, only normal windows shares, with virtual disks. I did... See more...
Hi James, My final solution involved a battery backed RAID controller supported by ESXi 5.5. I'm now running only VMFS, no Storage Spaces, only normal windows shares, with virtual disks. I did this because of performance issues and flexibility. My problem was that using a passthrough controller for a VM would cause it to be a "static" VM, without the flexibility ESXi offers. Furthermore ESXi has very poor performance using local drives that are NOT cached. To my understanding ESXi does not offer write/read cache, which makes mechanical harddrives(non-ssd) extremely slow. At least that was my experience. I dropped Storage Spaces, because it makes no sense running a RAID10 -> VMFS -> Storage Space solution. Storage Spaces only works well if the drives are non-RAID, passed directly through to W2K12, so you can take advantage of the flexibility that Storage Spaces offer(mixing raid levels on the same drives). Hope this helps /Jim
Thanks for your reply. I've decided to try out running VMFS only BR Jim
Dear community, Running the latest ESXi 5.5, I'm not sure how to setup my storage. I have the option of using an 8-port SAS controller as passthrough, directly to my Windows Server 2012 VM,... See more...
Dear community, Running the latest ESXi 5.5, I'm not sure how to setup my storage. I have the option of using an 8-port SAS controller as passthrough, directly to my Windows Server 2012 VM, running storage spaces. This option renders the controller unuseable for any other VM, than my 2012 server. There fore I though about just making "normal" virtual disks(vmdk) and using those for Storage Spaces in Windows 2012. This would be more versatile as I could use all the drives on the controller for other VM's as well. However I can't seem to find any pros and cons about this option. So I'm seeking the community's advice here, VMDK files or direct passthrough, for Windows 2012 Server with Storage spaces. Thank you for any replies. Best regards Jim
Thanks Matt, That gave a lot of insight, I'll try testing some more. BR Jim
Hi Matt, Good point. I have an HP Microserver with Windows 2012 on it. 3 NIC's and setup for LACP. This should provide approximately 3Gbit/s speeds. I'm then copying a testfile from a W2... See more...
Hi Matt, Good point. I have an HP Microserver with Windows 2012 on it. 3 NIC's and setup for LACP. This should provide approximately 3Gbit/s speeds. I'm then copying a testfile from a W2K8 VM with VMXNET3 vNIC. The testfile in located on a SSD. Thanks Jim
Thanks André for your tip. Although I only have a single ESXi host, will vDS work? Also are you saying that it's not possible to reach more than 1Gbit/s throughput using a normal vSwitch with ... See more...
Thanks André for your tip. Although I only have a single ESXi host, will vDS work? Also are you saying that it's not possible to reach more than 1Gbit/s throughput using a normal vSwitch with IP hash teaming? Thanks for you assistance so far. Jim
Dear community, I've setup Link Aggregation to the best of my knowledge, but I have some questions I'm hoping you guru's can answer. Main problem/concern: Even though I should be having the... See more...
Dear community, I've setup Link Aggregation to the best of my knowledge, but I have some questions I'm hoping you guru's can answer. Main problem/concern: Even though I should be having the equivalent of ~3Gbit/s network connection towards my LAN, I can only squeeze out exactly 1Gbit/s. Please see the attached pictures of my network config in ESXi. Questions: 1) According my screendumps, does everything look ok? 2) Do I need to tick the boxes in the "NIC Teaming" tab on the Virtual Machine Port Group also(see picture 4 below), or is this inherited from the vSwitch? 3) Using a VM with VMXNET3 adapter, I can only get 1Gbit/s throughput when testing, is this normal? System info: ESXi 5.1.0, 914609 Supermicro X9-SCM-F 16GB ECC Xeon E1220 2 x Onboard NIC's 1 x Dual Port PCIe x4 NIC 1 x NIC for mgmt 3 x NIC for VM's (Cabled up to my Cisco SG-200 switch and setup as LAG(without LACP) Any help would be much appreciated. Best regards Jim
Thanks I'll give that a go!
Oddly, both VM's were using E1000 adapter before I changed them to VMXNET3. Bot were also in the same portgroup, as I only use 1 switch and 1 portgroup.
Working now. I didn't change anything router/dns wise, but I configured a static IP + changed both VM's to use VMXNET3 adapter. I have no idea why or how it's now working as these changes shou... See more...
Working now. I didn't change anything router/dns wise, but I configured a static IP + changed both VM's to use VMXNET3 adapter. I have no idea why or how it's now working as these changes shouldn't matter really, but it does and I'm happy Thanks for your kind help. Best regards Jim
That didn't work either, but then it struck me, I'm running DHCP with static lease on all the servers. When I used a manual IP, it could it fact transfer without the uplink connected. I've not... See more...
That didn't work either, but then it struck me, I'm running DHCP with static lease on all the servers. When I used a manual IP, it could it fact transfer without the uplink connected. I've not tried with the uplink connected yet, but I can't imagine that a static IP would be needed for "in vSwitch" transfers?? Best regards Jim
Yes, they're on the same portgroup.
Hi all, Having a single ESXi 5 host with 2 VM's on it. Very basic setup. They're both on the same vSwitch, no VLAN, one physical adapter connected. I thought VM's on the same vSwitch com... See more...
Hi all, Having a single ESXi 5 host with 2 VM's on it. Very basic setup. They're both on the same vSwitch, no VLAN, one physical adapter connected. I thought VM's on the same vSwitch communicated within that switch and not through my physical network. I see now, that this is not the case. Here's my setup 192.168.1.1 = Linksys router acts as DHCP/DNS etc. 192.168.1.2 = ESXi mgmt 192.168.1.3 = VM1 OpenIndiana (vmtools installed and working) 192.168.1.4 = VM2 Windows 2008 Server Copying a file from VM1 to VM2 results in the traffic going through the physical network. How can I change this, so it runs internally? Thanks for any help Best regards Jim
Solved, using vCMA and safari for iPad.
Thank you both, but my question remains unanswered. I know how to start it up via WOL and that works. But I need a way to hibernate or standby the host, OR completely shut it down, from an iPad o... See more...
Thank you both, but my question remains unanswered. I know how to start it up via WOL and that works. But I need a way to hibernate or standby the host, OR completely shut it down, from an iPad or iPhone. Thanks again.
Dear Community, I'm running a single ESXi 5 host at home, with a couple VM's on. The VM's are NAS appliances hosting the family's photos, videos etc. These are not required to be online 24/... See more...
Dear Community, I'm running a single ESXi 5 host at home, with a couple VM's on. The VM's are NAS appliances hosting the family's photos, videos etc. These are not required to be online 24/7, but only "by demand". I'm trying to save power and MTBF on the drives. Hence my question: Is it possible to someway hibernate, standby or the like with a single ESXi 5 host? Thanks for any replies. /Jim
Anyone got an idea about my above question?