iSCSI best practices

[MarioHidalgo]

I recently purchased FalconStor IPStore NSSVA virtual storage software. I would say that I am impressed with the features. During the installation process, the technical support rep from FalconStore, suggested to create one LUN per virtual machine (my environment is very small) instead of one LUN for all the VMs. This did not sound right to me although, his reasoning made sense: One LUN per machine allows me to use mirroring controlling which VMs I want to apply the mirror to.

Which are the best practices for ISCSI design in terms of LUNs? Is the FalconStor approach correct, better small LUNS than a single one?

Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

[athlon_crazy]

I'm not on Falconstor side, but for your case Falconstor was correct to create one LUN per VM due to nature of the product and you are so lucky you have been informed. However, the choice is in your hand, whether you want to enable Falconstor mirror view per VM or not. If yes, meaning you have to stick with Falconstor suggestion. Once you create multiple VM in single LUN, you will not able to mirror it per VM anymore.

vcbMC-1.0.6 Beta

vcbMC-1.0.7 Lite

http://www.no-x.org

[MarioHidalgo]

Thank you for the reply. I understand your suggestion based on the nature of the software, but what about VMware best practices? Would the recommendation be the same or is better to have a big LUN with several VMs on it.?

[MattG]

Locate FalconStor's VMware BP guide. All vendors have them. In general following the best practice recommended by the vendor as it relates to VMware is usually a good idea

-MattG

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[Phokay]

When it comes to LUN sizing, it's always been a tricky. There are a number of suggestoins and postings here in the communities. Try searching "LUN Sizing".

[woodwarp]

For VMFS/Lun sizing consider Duncan's formular:

round((maxVMs * avgSize) + 20% )

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/06/23/vmfslun-size/

I agree that following Storage vendors advice is the best idea but if your mirroring is the same for each VM then why not have one of two larger mirrored LUN's and then non-mirrorred LUN's.

[MarioHidalgo]

Thank you all for your suggestions.