Issues with 3-Node HA deployment

telles75 · Thu Feb 13, 2014 3:52 pm

We installed Starwind Native SAN 3-Node (4TB) version 6.0.5713 back in December last year. Since then we have been facing very annoying issues to the point we are starting considering replacing this setup with a proper DELL Powervault SAN solution. We liked the idea of having redundancy with Starwind but the reality is that this is not working as we expected. Any how here's some background of our install:

- Starwind Native NAS running on 3 Dell Server R710 (Dual Xeon E5520, 72GB or RAM and Windows Server Standard 2012 R2)
- RAID 0 (4x 2TB NL-SAS HDDs) for performance (about 500 MB/s read/write performance)
- All 10Gb adapters and switches for Starwind (for both Synch channel and iSCSI traffic)
- 4TB HA device in Starwind with 1024MB of write-back caching (about 2.4 TB of actual data inside the HA device)
- 3-node cluster in Hyper V 2012 R2

Here are the issues:
1) The first issue we had was performance related. Even though when benchmarking the RAID 0 on each individual node we were getting 500 to 550 MB/s Read/Write speeds, when connecting to the Starwind Target we barely get around 200 MB/s.
2) Full sync speed is slow. The current configuration should allow for a full sync of 2.4TB happening in maximum 2.5 hours, however it takes between 8 and 14 hours.
3) Full Sync makes the system crawl! The VMs become extremely slow while a Full Sync is happening. If it's during a business day then all users complain of the slow performance.
4) The really worst issue we have is that any single time we reboot one of the 3 servers it requires a Full Sync! We thought if a server is shutdown properly then Fast Sync should happen. In the past month we had to reboot a server about twice a week, so 8 days in a month our users had to live with crawling speeds on the VMs.

We try contacting Starwind twice via email for support to no availability. Having paid over $5K I think we expected a more reliable product. We would really appreciate if we could get some help from the community on this regards.

Thanks!

Thu Feb 13, 2014 6:36 pm

Hello! I`m really sorry to hear all of that, and I sincerely apologize for all the inconveniences.
If you will drop me the short message to my direct mail box which is av@starwind.com I`ll start working on your case immediately and I can guarantee that you will be taken care of (please don`t forget to include the link to this topic into your email and I`d appreciate if you could send the message from your corporate email).

Please let me know if you are still willing to continue this conversation on the forum and we will gladly help you.

Thu Feb 13, 2014 6:39 pm

Techies would help with telling why performance is limited with the sync channel performance, how to increase sync speed and now to slow down it when req'd (to make VMs work better) and other things and I...

...I'd love to thave some copied of support e-mails you've sent (forwards I mean) so I would figure out why you did not get any reponses (like you say). Thank you!

Fri Feb 14, 2014 8:55 am

To be honest I have no idea we haven`t received nor email neither new post in this thread. I assume that you had something more urgent.
Nevertheless, again, we are sorry to hear about this experience. We have gone through our ticketing system and email, and we have no record of any support cases submitted by your organization. We are sure this can be attributed to something as simple as an improper communication channel. So, in the future you can email support@starwindsoftware.com or submit a new support ticket via the following page on our website http://www.starwindsoftware.com/support-form. Using either of these methods will ensure you receive the appropriate attention and subsequent resolution.

Delo123 · Fri Feb 14, 2014 7:03 pm

Could you guys put the "Outcome" of this Ticket on here if and how these issues are resolved?
Especially the Cause / Resolution as we (and i guess a lot of other (potential) customers) are looking at these options.

Thx!

Ps. It's really great when a Manufacturer has an open Forum like this, for me this is "true support".

Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:59 pm

1) We'll keep status on forum updated for sure.

2) We don't have any "dirty little secrets" to hide.

Delo123 wrote:Could you guys put the "Outcome" of this Ticket on here if and how these issues are resolved?
Especially the Cause / Resolution as we (and i guess a lot of other (potential) customers) are looking at these options.

Thx!

Ps. It's really great when a Manufacturer has an open Forum like this, for me this is "true support".

Tue Feb 18, 2014 11:05 pm

How's it going with the progress?

telles75 · Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:42 am

I forwarded the information to the email supplied in the second post. Thanks a lot for getting back so quickly!

Wed Feb 19, 2014 11:49 am

Just want to confirm that Ive received that and one of my colleagues will contact you soon.
I hope you will reply faster to them than to me in this thread

telles75 · Wed Feb 19, 2014 10:37 pm

I was a few days out of the office and just came back yesterday. I will be checking my company email for a reply from Starwind support.

Thanks again.

Thu Feb 20, 2014 12:03 pm

Guys could you please agree on a remote session to sort out this issue ASAP. Thank you!