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    Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2

    IT Discussion
    xp xenserver xenserver 7.2 storage iops
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    • K
      krisleslie @scottalanmiller
      last edited by

      @scottalanmiller
      So it sounds like I would do an install of Fedora as a server not desktop, to strip away the GUI. Then install kvm? What about management tools?

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      • S
        scottalanmiller @krisleslie
        last edited by

        @krisleslie said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

        @scottalanmiller
        So it sounds like I would do an install of Fedora as a server not desktop, to strip away the GUI. Then install kvm? What about management tools?

        You can also install the GUI on the server and have local management tools. Obviously managing purely remotely is better. But as this is a desktop anyway, local management tools are not out of the question and you can switch later once you are comfortable with it. There is no lock in to your GUI or tools choices like with Hyper-V.

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        • S
          scottalanmiller
          last edited by

          Check out this thread...

          https://mangolassi.it/topic/14944/manage-kvm-through-cockpit/

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          • S
            scottalanmiller
            last edited by

            And...

            https://mangolassi.it/topic/15529/what-is-kvm-best-management-tools-in-2017/

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            • S
              scottalanmiller
              last edited by

              And...

              https://mangolassi.it/topic/15540/kvm-on-fedora-26-server-edition/

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              • K
                krisleslie
                last edited by

                Just more reason I like open source I think I’m gonna switch to kvm at home

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                • S
                  scottalanmiller @krisleslie
                  last edited by

                  @krisleslie said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                  Just more reason I like open source I think I’m gonna switch to kvm at home

                  I've been using KVM instead of Hyper-V or VirtualBox for desktop use for the last ~year and it is great. So much better.

                  K 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • K
                    krisleslie @scottalanmiller
                    last edited by

                    @scottalanmiller well like they say all good things come to an end šŸ™‚ XS

                    I like XO I hope he considers porting to KVM.

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                    • O
                      Obsolesce
                      last edited by Obsolesce

                      A co-worker has the same laptop as I do, except the 15" version. Everything else is the exact same.

                      He's using EXT4 + LVM, and qcow2 for virtualdisks.

                      I'm using XFS + LVM, and RAW (.img) for virtual disks.

                      My Win10 VM gets twice the I/O as his. We both had nothing in the background running.

                      I know this doesn't help with Xen, but food for thought. (we're both using m.2 SSDs) Mine was over 2k MBps reads, his was 1k, mine was 400 MBps writes, his was 200

                      Edit: We're both running Fedora 26. At that time I was running Gnome and him Cinnamon.

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                      • K
                        krisleslie @Obsolesce
                        last edited by

                        @tim_g what would be the comparison speed of a raid 10 off spinning rust to 1 ssd in iops?

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                        • S
                          scottalanmiller @krisleslie
                          last edited by

                          @krisleslie said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                          @scottalanmiller well like they say all good things come to an end šŸ™‚ XS

                          I like XO I hope he considers porting to KVM.

                          Oh he is considering it. Just don't know what he decided.

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                          • S
                            scottalanmiller @Obsolesce
                            last edited by

                            @tim_g said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                            A co-worker has the same laptop as I do, except the 15" version. Everything else is the exact same.

                            He's using EXT4 + LVM, and qcow2 for virtualdisks.

                            I'm using XFS + LVM, and RAW (.img) for virtual disks.

                            My Win10 VM gets twice the I/O as his. We both had nothing in the background running.

                            I know this doesn't help with Xen, but food for thought. (we're both using m.2 SSDs) Mine was over 2k MBps reads, his was 1k, mine was 400 MBps writes, his was 200

                            Edit: We're both running Fedora 26. At that time I was running Gnome and him Cinnamon.

                            But both on KVM, right? No Xen involved?

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                            • S
                              scottalanmiller @krisleslie
                              last edited by

                              @krisleslie said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                              @tim_g what would be the comparison speed of a raid 10 off spinning rust to 1 ssd in iops?

                              A SATA 7200 RPM drive is ~100 IOPS. So four of them in RAID 10 is 400 Read IOPS.

                              A typical SATA SSD is 10K - 100K IOPS.

                              You would need hundreds of SATA drives in a massive RAID 10 with huge cache to come close to a single $100 SSD drive, let alone a nice M.2 drive.

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                              • O
                                Obsolesce @scottalanmiller
                                last edited by

                                @scottalanmiller said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                                @tim_g said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                                A co-worker has the same laptop as I do, except the 15" version. Everything else is the exact same.

                                He's using EXT4 + LVM, and qcow2 for virtualdisks.

                                I'm using XFS + LVM, and RAW (.img) for virtual disks.

                                My Win10 VM gets twice the I/O as his. We both had nothing in the background running.

                                I know this doesn't help with Xen, but food for thought. (we're both using m.2 SSDs) Mine was over 2k MBps reads, his was 1k, mine was 400 MBps writes, his was 200

                                Edit: We're both running Fedora 26. At that time I was running Gnome and him Cinnamon.

                                But both on KVM, right? No Xen involved?

                                Correct.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • F
                                  FATeknollogee @Obsolesce
                                  last edited by

                                  @tim_g said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                                  A co-worker has the same laptop as I do, except the 15" version. Everything else is the exact same.

                                  He's using EXT4 + LVM, and qcow2 for virtualdisks.

                                  I'm using XFS + LVM, and RAW (.img) for virtual disks.

                                  Why RAW (.img), I thought qcow2 is/was preferred?

                                  O 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • O
                                    Obsolesce @FATeknollogee
                                    last edited by Obsolesce

                                    @fateknollogee said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                                    @tim_g said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                                    A co-worker has the same laptop as I do, except the 15" version. Everything else is the exact same.

                                    He's using EXT4 + LVM, and qcow2 for virtualdisks.

                                    I'm using XFS + LVM, and RAW (.img) for virtual disks.

                                    Why RAW (.img), I thought qcow2 is/was preferred?

                                    I don't need any special features like snapshotting or anything like that, only performance. RAW is presented as-is to the VM and gives the best IO performance.

                                    I can always convert if need be, and there are other ways of snapshotting/checkpointing.

                                    There are many other differences too, but it's better to google comparisons rather than me try to quickly explain it while preoccupied.

                                    stacksofplatesS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • stacksofplatesS
                                      stacksofplates @Obsolesce
                                      last edited by

                                      @tim_g said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                                      @fateknollogee said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                                      @tim_g said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                                      A co-worker has the same laptop as I do, except the 15" version. Everything else is the exact same.

                                      He's using EXT4 + LVM, and qcow2 for virtualdisks.

                                      I'm using XFS + LVM, and RAW (.img) for virtual disks.

                                      Why RAW (.img), I thought qcow2 is/was preferred?

                                      I don't need any special features like snapshotting or anything like that, only performance. RAW is presented as-is to the VM and gives the best IO performance.

                                      I can always convert if need be, and there are other ways of snapshotting/checkpointing.

                                      There are many other differences too, but it's better to google comparisons rather than me try to quickly explain it while preoccupied.

                                      If you preallocate the qcow2s you get close to raw speeds.

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                                      • F
                                        FATeknollogee
                                        last edited by

                                        For what I'm doing qcow2 is fine, except I can't snapshot "q35/uefi"...a fix is coming sometime in the future.

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                                        • K
                                          krisleslie
                                          last edited by

                                          Scott I knew it was vast difference but not 100x!!!! Dude a 4 ssd raid 10 is Basiclally all you need !!!

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                                          • S
                                            scottalanmiller @krisleslie
                                            last edited by

                                            @krisleslie said in Need to Improve Disk Utilization on XenServer 7.2:

                                            Scott I knew it was vast difference but not 100x!!!! Dude a 4 ssd raid 10 is Basiclally all you need !!!

                                            Absolutely, that's why no one uses RAID 10 for SSDs, doesn't make sense as the leap in performance is so big. That's why RAID 5 is about all that is used.

                                            jmooreJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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