denywinarto Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 I'm building a pxe server where IOPS and read performance is crucial, and i was wondering, how is drivepool's performance options compared to raid 0? And which one gives the best result for read-intensive purpose? My plan is to raid 0 3x 4tb black WD, I'm also gonna synchronize them with my main server using syncovery for a periodical backup, and the files on this pxe server doesnt get updated very often.. Thats why i choose raid 0. I'm leaning towards raid 0 for performance, but its non-expandability (have to backup and copy again) and DP scanners' ability interests me..t. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Christopher (Drashna) Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 12 hours ago, denywinarto said: I'm building a pxe server where IOPS and read performance is crucial, You want RAID0/10 then. StableBit DrivePool isn't going to get you much better performance than the underlying drives. As for PXE, using an SSD for this may be a good idea too. Also, if you're using Windows Server, you MUST check out Windows Deployment Services. It's the built in PXE server for Windows, and is designed to install Windows over PXE. But you can also load in any WinPE image (such as the client restore disk for Essentials), or any "tools" that use WinPE. The advantage here is that WDS deduplicates the data, so you can fit a LOT of images into a relatively small amount of disk space. Additionally, there is/was WDSLinux that lets you boot a linux boot image over WDS (but only for BIOS, not UEFI, the last time I checked). Also... this is mostly me being a nerd and totally geeking out... but I used all of the above to actually boot windows from iSCSI over PXE. It wasn't fast, but it worked! Also, all that playing that I did is why I recommend a SSD for this. It may be simpler and work just as well, if not better than a RAID array. Especially, if it's an NVMe SSD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 denywinarto Posted August 31, 2018 Author Share Posted August 31, 2018 2 hours ago, Christopher (Drashna) said: You want RAID0/10 then. StableBit DrivePool isn't going to get you much better performance than the underlying drives. As for PXE, using an SSD for this may be a good idea too. Also, if you're using Windows Server, you MUST check out Windows Deployment Services. It's the built in PXE server for Windows, and is designed to install Windows over PXE. But you can also load in any WinPE image (such as the client restore disk for Essentials), or any "tools" that use WinPE. The advantage here is that WDS deduplicates the data, so you can fit a LOT of images into a relatively small amount of disk space. Additionally, there is/was WDSLinux that lets you boot a linux boot image over WDS (but only for BIOS, not UEFI, the last time I checked). Also... this is mostly me being a nerd and totally geeking out... but I used all of the above to actually boot windows from iSCSI over PXE. It wasn't fast, but it worked! Also, all that playing that I did is why I recommend a SSD for this. It may be simpler and work just as well, if not better than a RAID array. Especially, if it's an NVMe SSD. Thanks for the explanation chris, I'm already using ccboot for pxe booting.. Too bad, i read somewhere smart parameters cant be read from stripped drives, is it true? As for ssd, i wanted to but well.. 12 tb of ssd would cost about four times of the 3 wd black that i told you :( Maybe next year when sdd prices go down i will replace them with ssd.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Christopher (Drashna) Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 On 8/31/2018 at 1:08 PM, denywinarto said: I'm already using ccboot for pxe booting.. Well, if you have something that works, then by all means. On 8/31/2018 at 1:08 PM, denywinarto said: Too bad, i read somewhere smart parameters cant be read from stripped drives, is it true? Correct. At best, the software would need to send proprietary commands to the systems, which we actively avoid doing. If it's not documented, it's not safe. Also, the surface scan and file system scans are actually the top priority, so supporting RAID arrays would make things a lot more complicated, and require a complete redesign of the UI to accommodate. On 8/31/2018 at 1:08 PM, denywinarto said: As for ssd, i wanted to but well.. 12 tb of ssd would cost about four times of the 3 wd black that i told you Maybe next year when sdd prices go down i will replace them with ssd.. Yeah SSDs are still rather expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Question
denywinarto
I'm building a pxe server where IOPS and read performance is crucial,
and i was wondering, how is drivepool's performance options compared to raid 0?
And which one gives the best result for read-intensive purpose?
My plan is to raid 0 3x 4tb black WD,
I'm also gonna synchronize them with my main server using syncovery for a periodical backup,
and the files on this pxe server doesnt get updated very often..
Thats why i choose raid 0.
I'm leaning towards raid 0 for performance,
but its non-expandability (have to backup and copy again) and DP scanners' ability interests me..t.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
3 answers to this question
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.