StarWind Software

I am going to build out a 3-node hyperconverged cluster for Hyper-V using Starwind Virtual SAN and I'm planning for the hardware.

I do not have a large disk space requirement, and I'll be able to run all of my VMs without much compromise at all on 2 nodes if I lose a node.

I was considering using (2) 1.9TB SSD (the new Samsung SM863) in RAID0 for my SAN storage for just under 4TB of total usable space (i'd also have some small ssds in RAID1 for the host OS)


So my questions are:

1. Is it a bad idea to have NO hardware RAID and just rely on RAIN for data redundancy if it's acceptable for me to lose a node long enough to rebuild the array? (I'll also have separate backups)

2. Am I better off running a single SSD instead of RAID0 w/Starwind Virtual SAN for any reason (beside the fact that raid0 is more likely to fail than no raid)

3. Am I better off just using SSD for the L2 cache and then just running spinning sata disks for storage (even if i don't require the extra disk space per dollar spinning disks provide)?

4. If I choose to go w/ L1 RAM Cache, L2 PCI-e Flash Cache, and spinning disks is there much noticeable performance difference in a 3 node cluster when compared to L1 RAM Cache Only & RAID0 SSDs for Storage

I wonder what networks do you have? Since using SSD or All-Flash requires appropriate network bandwidth to avoid bottlenecking your whole environment.

Hello,

1. It is totally acceptable to run all thing on top of RAIDless SSDs in your case.

2. I would recommend going non-RAID as those Samsungs in RAID 0 are really sounding like overkill to me

3. It is always better to go "all-flash" if you have such opportunity.

4. SSDs would definitely give you much better performance vs spindles, as your RAID cache would be filled at some point forcing spindle drives to handle "raw" workload.

Hey, just wanted to quickly check in here.

Looks like community provided a good recommendations. Please let us know if that helped.