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SSD Optimizer with Single SSD Drive and Duplication


myrkr

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So I've read around the forums quite a bit, plus read the notes on the SSD Optimizer, and if I understand things correctly, the SSD optimizer plug-in would need two drives if I have duplication enabled.

 

My question is, what if I don't enable real-time duplication and instead allow for duplication to take place later at night. In that case, could I use just a single drive with the SSD optimizer plug in and have it work correctly? Will it just use the SSD as the landing zone, and then move the single file to the drive of it's choice, and then later at night perform duplication? I wasn't sure if it was an automatic necessity to have two SSDs if I have duplication of folders enabled, but not in real time.

 

On a separate but similar note, my interest in the SSD optimizer plug-in comes from wanting to max out the write speed, since I'm often writing big files (30-40GB) I'd like to not sit there and wait if I don't have too. So it seems like the SSD optimizer plug-in would be an excellent option. I've been a bit spoiled coming from my WHS V1 where I routinely saw 100+ mbps on big files and often would completely saturate the network and bounce around 120-125 mpbs for most of the transfer. After living with that as my normal I would like to make sure I optimize my setup to try and equal those speeds. Currently in my initial testing of my WHS 2011 with Drivepool and an 8TB pool made up of two 4TB WD RE drives I haven't seen anything faster than 60 mbps really during transfers. So I'm hoping I can make some adjustments to get the speed up.

 

Thanks

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Need, no.
 
However, if you don't have two SSDs (or "fast" disks), then it will default to using one of the archive disks for writing as well as the SSD.  This may significantly slow down the transfer. 
 
As for maxing out the speeds, have you enabled the "Network IO Boost" option? This uses up more CPU cycles, but may boost your network speed.
Also, there are some network settings that may help (client and server), as well.

For the Network Adapter (in device management or "Configure" on the properties page):
Flow control: on (client and server)
"checksum" or "Offload": Off (client and server)
jumbo frames: off or default (client or server)
Green Ethernet: off (this decreases the power used, and for me seems to cause issues, Client and Server)
Interrupt Moderation: off (client and server)
 
run "netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=highlyrestricted" in an elevated console on the client machine (if Vista or Windows 7). (client)
Under network connection, where "Internet Protocol Version 4" is, make sure "QoS Packet Scheduling" is turned off or removed on all clients. (Client and Server)

 

Also, I'd like to know how you were maxing out the speeds on WHSv1... I only ever saw 30-40MB/s on it, tops.

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Okay, that makes sense on the SSD Optimizer plug-in. Thanks for that information.

 

Currently I do not have the Network IO Boost option enabled, so I'll try that out and see what kind of results I get. I did a little more testing last night though and found that when I transfer something from a client to the server that the speeds quickly max out my connection. Copying a single 4gb file for instance from the client to the server shows around 120-125MB/s. When I copy directly from my old WHS V1 server to the new WHS V2 server though it seems like my max is about 70MB/s, and on average like 50-60MB/s. I'm not exactly sure where the difference is coming from between the two, I'm guessing it's something to do with the way I'm copying files between the servers. I'm copying them from on the client, but between the two servers. So I'm not initiating the transfer directly from the desktop of the WHS V1 and then over to WHS V2 as seen on the network. I'm handling the transfer by copying between the shared folders on my Win 7 machine, over to the folders on WHS V2. I assume that because I'm using the client as the middleman I'm adding an extra piece into the equation which is slowing things down. But when I transfer directly to from the client to WHS V2 I get a saturated connection instantly. 

 

I'll have a look and do some of those tweaks as well and see what happens.

 

As for the speeds on my old WHS V1 I'm not exactly sure how I accomplished it. Dumb luck? :) My WHS V1 setup wasn't anything special really, an Athlon X2 Regor, 2GB ram, Gigabyte motherboard with Intel GB. The router is a Netgear WNDR3700 connected to a Netgear 8 port switch. All the stuff is regular gigabit rated with Cat 5E. The OS drive was an old Seagate drive (7200.8?) and then the storage drives were a mix of WD RE 2TB and 1TB drives. I never really tinkered around much with the settings, I just left things as they were and on average large files would copy at around 100MB/s and often times I would see 125MB/s.

 

I actually considered for a while with my new server build upgrading to 10GbE to take advantage of the faster speeds since my current 1GbE connection seems to be my limitation. But the cost was way to expensive for me to justify. 

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Not a problem. The SSD Optimizer is definitely a specialized balancer, and does take some extra care to set up properly. Namely, knowing how to use it.

 

 

As for the copies, if you're coping from one server to another, from the client... that will basically half the speed you can get as you're dividing the traffic between the two systems. If you did straight server to server, you would probably see better speeds.

 

As for WHSv1, well, the intel NIC would be part of it. They're great NICs.

But even still, apparently you picked the right hardware! 

 

 

And yeah, 10GbE is EXPENSIVE. Since it's not a consumer tech yet, it's going to stay that way.

 

However, what you can do get another NIC or two, and use network bridging/link aggregation to boost the speeds. Won't be as good as 10GbE, but it should be better than gigabit. That is... assuming that everything is attached to the same switch.

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Been testing a little more and have found that on average my current speeds for copying from client to server are around 100-125MB/s. Something that didn't dawn on me before, and honestly something I can't really even remember in regards to my WHS V1, is the system drive supposed to be added to the pool? I looked around and couldn't find anything that gave too much insight, just something about the data on the system drive partition being added to the pool if I added it. It doesn't look like I can use the SSD optimizer plug-in however unless I add the SSD (system drive to the pool).

 

I'm going to have to look more into the network bridging and see if I can make that work. The new motherboard I have has dual ports and does support teaming, however I couldn't find much documentation online that showed how well it worked with WHS V2. It appears that the underlying support is baked into the later OS's like Server 2012, and Server 2008 does support it, but driver support seems iffy.

 

Thanks for all the help btw

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125MB/s is the max theortical for Gigabit network speed. So if you're hitting that ceiling, that's fantastic.

 

As for the system drive.... we generally recommend against it, because it makes reinstallation more problematic.

But if you're using it with the SSD Optimizer, it shouldn't be as much of an issue.

 

As for teaming/bridging, yeah, that's very dependant on the drivers. If you have intel NICs, then you should be good to go. 

However, WHS2011 doesn't support teaming. The base OS does, but the WHS specific code will run into issues if you enable teaming.

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My question is, what if I don't enable real-time duplication and instead allow for duplication to take place later at night. In that case, could I use just a single drive with the SSD optimizer plug in and have it work correctly? Will it just use the SSD as the landing zone, and then move the single file to the drive of it's choice, and then later at night perform duplication?

 

 

..if you don't have two SSDs (or "fast" disks), then it will default to using one of the archive disks for writing as well as the SSD.  This may significantly slow down the transfer. 

 

I am still confused.  I have exactly the same question as myrkr, and am focusing on write speed.  I understand with duplication, it will need to write to 2 drives, and the slower drive will be the bottleneck.  But, if you allow for delayed duplication, shouldn't that solve the problem?  It will only write to SSD initially, and then duplicate later, which would provide fast write speeds.  

 

Or does SSD Optimizer bypass delayed duplication and force immediate (SSD and Archive drive)?  

 

Also, I am new here.  Just about to convert from an old WHS v1 to 2011.  DrivePool looks perfect and price looks right!  Are the add-ins like SSD Optimizer free?  Or is there added charge for them?   

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If you disabled real-time duplication, then yes, it would only write to the one disk regardless of the duplication level, and then later duplicate the file.

 

However, note that by default, the duplication pass will only happen once a day. That is a rather large window for something to happen. Also, if the file is "held option", that it won't duplicate it, to prevent sync issues.  

 

And no, the SSD Optimizer wouldn't interfere with the duplication.

 

 

 

And the Add-In balancers are 100% free.  We just have them as optional downloads, because they significantly change the balancing's default behaviors, and we want to keep them separate because of that.

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Sorry for that. I meant "held open". Specifically, when a file is opened, it's lock and other processes can't mess with it. You may have seen that when trying to move or delete a file when it's still open.

The same thing happens when we try to access it for duplication, and is why we recommend enabling real-time duplication (which does not have this issue).

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Not sure if this is the right thread, but since the topic of transfer speed was brought up.....

 

I came from a WHS v1 machine using DE.  I got read speeds of about 50 MB/s.  I was always rather happy with that.  I just moved to WHS 2011 with DrivePool.  I now get 70+MB/s.  This actually appears to be right at or above the tested raw drive read speed that I benchmarked for my drives standalone.  How is that possible?  Is there some form of striping going on?  I have immediate duplication enabled, if that matters.  

 

Oddly, I am getting almost as good on write as well. 

 

As you can imagine, I am quite happy.  Just confused how this is possible!

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Well, there are a couple of things going on here.
 
First, since the Pool doesn't use an actual file system there is no added overhead (like in Drive Extender). And because we basically forward all the disk requests to the disks, you should see closer to those raw speeds. Because you are very close to reading from the disks directly, basically.
 
Additionally, yes, we do implement read striping for the data. :)
Here are a couple excerpt about Read Strping from the manual:

StableBit DrivePool balances the reads across different speed hard drives, depending on the current I/O load.
 
For example, if you have 2 hard drives, one connected via. USB 2.0 and another via. eSATA, StableBit DrivePool will issue more read calls to the eSATA drive because it has more bandwidth.

 
 

StableBit DrivePool utilizes a number of read striping algorithms, depending on the situation.
 
For large sequential I/O, such as large file copying, read striping will utilize a block based algorithm, maximizing the use of each disk and minimizing disk context switches.
 
For random non-sequential I/O read striping always sends the request to the disk with the least outstanding requests. Because seek times can be high in this scenario, StableBit DrivePool tries to switch disk contexts often.
 
For slow non-concurrent I/O read striping passively measures the speed of each disk and dynamically switches the the fastest disk.
 
You can see this in action under the Performance UI.


http://stablebit.com/Support/DrivePool/2.X/Manual?Section=Performance%20Options

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Is Read Striping enabled by default in V1.x?  I ask because it is an option to select in 2.x, but I do not see the option anywhere in 1.X

 

EDIT: nevermind!  Found it.  I did not even realize there was a "User's Manual" for DrivePool until I saw your link.  Sort of like an Apple product.  DrivePool is so easy to use, I never read anything.  I probably should though!

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Yes, it's enabled by default, because there is very, very little overhead to using it and it generates better performance from the pool. It's a "win-win" feature. :)

 

Another feature you may want to check out is "Network IO Boost". This one is turned off by default, because it can adversely affect performance, but it prioritizes network access to the pool over local disk access. However, this does take a bit more resources, and shouldn't be used on lower end systems.

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Well, I think I am going crazy.  I see in the 1.X user manual online that there is a setting for "Performance" for striping.  But that option is not available on my verison (most recent version 1.3.6.7585.  And no "IO Boost" option.  Are those just on 2.X now?  

 

In reality, I do not need either setting, but curious minds want to know....

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Go to the StableBit DrivePool tab, and then at the bottom, click on the "Disks".

 

That will show the Read Striping, and Network IO Boost checkboxes.

 

 

Thanks.  I did decide to try Drivepool 2.X.  It was a trivially easy process to uninstall 1.X and the install 2.X.  DId not even have to re-enter my license.  Apparently, it was kept intact.  I actually like 2.X much better than 1.X on WHS 2011.  First, I like the remote management much better.  Lighter and faster interface than Dashboard.  Also, I LOVE the folder by folder duplication option.  I saved about 800GB of space by de-selecting sub-folders that contained info I did not need to duplicate, but were in main folders I did want duplicated.  

 

So I am staying with 2.X.  

 

I could not be more happy with Drivepool after 1 week of use.  Best utility I have ever bought for my PC.  

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Yeah, we implemented some migration code, because a lot of people were switching from DrivePool 1.3 to DrivePool 2.1 and having licensing issues.

 

And we're happy to hear that you've very happy with the changes.

Also, if you're interested, StableBit DrivePool 2.1 supports "File placement rules", so that you can specify which files or folders end up one which disks (so like commonly access folders are on faster drives, etc)

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