Total: 3 / in use: 3 / in no VG: 0 [0 lvscanĪCTIVE '/dev/hdd2/lv_hdd2' inheritĪCTIVE '/dev/hdd1/lv_hdd1' inheritĪCTIVE '/dev/pve/swap' inheritĪCTIVE '/dev/pve/root' inheritĪCTIVE '/dev/pve/data' inheritĢxHDD with LVM for images, 500GB ext3 for backups etc.
Unfortunately I've gotten no closer to putting this system into production, but I have learnt a lot about linux and promox in the process. So, make sure to buy an 8 port card for future expansion or moving the RAID array to a new box easily. You will only save 20% of the cost with half the ports and keep in mind you could be using that card for the next 5-8 years (most cards can run forever). I would not skimp on a 4 port RAID card, either. This would add around $1200 to the cost of the box, with the $800 RAID card and two $200 RE4 2TB, but trust me it would be worth every penny. You should grab at least 2 more of those as well. I assume you are using Western Digital RE4 2TB disks, which are very nice but will be slow if you are running Microsoft Exchange on just two. I suggest this LSI card with their Cachecade license: You are better off finding a RAID controller with SSD caching. The combination is very new to Linux (within last year) and I do not believe it is mature enough for a small production environment yet.
The process to get the SSD cache setup on top of a software-RAID 1 is not simple and if there is a drive problem you cannot boot to fix it (since it is software RAID). It is possible to do what you want to do on Proxmox 3.1 (with Debian Wheezy), using bcache and software raid, but I agree with screenie. I just haven't found much on the forums or the Internet similar to my configuration. If anyone has a similar setup or may be able to offer some advice, I'm happy to do the research and nut it out myself. Otherwise i'll have to convince them to buy a Hardware RAID card. I'm assuming this will need to be done through Wheezy with a 3rd party application for software RAID.
I don't know if there are any storage options that would be able to access a share from all VMs on Proxmox and be fast, possibly iSCSI? (No idea).Ĭurrently everything is installed on the SSD as I have no idea how to configure RAID-1 on the hard drives and allow SSD for cache. if the system failed without committing to disk a rollback to 30seconds prior would be adequate as the data entry is performed manually and we would just enter it again, we wouldn't lose any actual data. Also, the system could sustain up to 30seconds of dataloss with no major issues, i.e. All of the Databases are approximately 1.5GB total size so they would fit in a RAMDisk. Hosted on FreeNAS and running from Windows XP VM was slow. Creating multiple VMs on the same hardware was still slow, sharing the database file with samba. I would like to push for Terminal Services or at least Remote App to run our main database application, it is a legacy 16bit Access 2.0 app and it is awful.
I would like to run the SSD to accelerate the system but I would like to ensure that I can setup a RAID1 on the HDDs and replicate back to those drives, also use them for large near-line content such as archived photos, application install files, system backups and file backups. I am at a loss to how to configure the storage.
I did some testing with Proxmox and found it to be quite promising, and it has received a lot of praise around the Internet too.ġ x Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1230 v3 (4C 8T, 8M Cache, 3.30 GHz)ĪSUS P9D-M Intel chipset C224,LGA1150 Motherboard, Dual LAN, 4 Sata 6GĢ x 2TB Western Digital Re Enterprise, Sata 6Gġ x 256GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD (Not Enterprise)Īll components in a server case with battery backed power supply, all components carry at least 5 year warranty. I thought it would be a total waste not to re-install on a hyper-visor for obvious reasons allowing multiple servers on the same hardware. Currently we are running Windows 2003 SBS on an old computer and we are finally replacing it. I am new to the forums but have been reading about Proxmox and testing it for a few months.