Perc 6/i + Win2019 - Recommendations please.
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Hi Everyone,
I'm migrating one windows server to xcp, I'm using the same hardware as it was running is quite old but it should do some job fine.
Is a DELL PowerEdge2900 with 28gb and 8 cores(I think)It has a perc 6/i with 8 disks. and RAID10
I dont think I could just link the raid directly to the win2019 vm, right? At least not using the frontends.(XOA/XCPNG Center)But all sorted I just copied everything and installed from zero.
During the installation, it asked if I wanted to add the perc to the pool, if I say yes, it will create a storage adding the SSD + the Perc, not what I want.
So I didnt add and added later, got the path using lsblk and added the storage as LVM to /dev/sda created the SR and linked to the host.Formatted to NTFS inside the windows.
However, the file transfer to the VM seems a bit slower than before, It was getting 2-4mbs, same thing either using USB Passthrough or network. Pretty sure the workstation was on 10/100 and just the server on gigabit. But still.
I checked the disks on idrac and they are healthy.
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These old servers are getting very long in the tooth when it comes to VMs, they're missing key instructions sets.
That aside, with a newer server you could pass the RAID card directly through to a VM, but the 2900 series pre-dates that technology.
Ideally, what are you trying to do here and how is it setup currently? There's a few ways to accomplish this based on those answers.
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@gsrfan01 Thanks for the quick reply,
I'm building a local file server for now, maybe another small things coming later, but just to copy the 1.5tb back to the server will take ages.
Im wondering if the SR setup I mentioned is the best option for performance or if I would have better option.
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In the current setup are you using the PERC6/i as a standard Storage Repository and then creating a disk on that SR?
You mentioned some pass through options before so I want to confirm we're working with a "vanilla" install here.
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@gsrfan01
No XCP is installed on a SSD 1tb Sata, the raid would be just for the file server -
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@vsaad Awesome, thank you! Wanted to make sure that was the case.
Did you install the Management Agent? If so, which did you use?
Personally I've found Citrix's to be the most performant.
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@gsrfan01 The first installation it installed automatically and crashed error IRQ, as it was fresh installation I did a new one without the windows update check and Installed the XCP tools.
Shall I try changing over? just uninstall the xcp tools and put the citrix?
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I use these, they do require a free login from Citrix: https://fileservice.citrix.com/download/secured/support/article/CTX235403/downloads/citrix-vm-tools-9.2.3.zip
Did you use these? https://github.com/xcp-ng/win-pv-drivers/releases
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@gsrfan01 Ok great, I will give a go, any tricks or just standard uninstall and install?
Thanks for your attention btw.If anyone else wanna comment regarding the setup I'd appreciate! As it doesn't have gigabit, I may just create a bond with 2-4 eth as well
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I would uninstall the XCP-NG tools, reboot, then install Citrix's tools, then reboot again.
Then try running something like Crystal Disk Mark against the second drive.
If you don't have GB you'll be limited to pretty much 10MB/s per client even with bonding. Bonding won't increase the speed to a single client, but would let you serve 3 clients at 10MB/s each.
Do you have an extra PCI slot? You could get a GB NIC pretty cheaply.
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@gsrfan01 Okay I'll give it a go.
I also did the crystal mark test, see below:
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@vsaad A PERC-6 is pretty old technology. Getting in the 50 MB/sec I/O range seems pretty good and some of the limitations will be on the disks, themselves. You might try running "iostat -x" while the Crystal Mark test is running to see if anything saturates, like the CPU, or if you get high wait states or other tell-tale signs,
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@vsaad that might be your limit. Those old PERC cards aren't particularly performant unfortunately.
You could try passing the whole device through to the VM: https://forums.lawrencesystems.com/t/xenserver-hard-drive-whole-disk-passthrough-with-xcp-ng/3433
That might help, but I'm not sure if that method still works.
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@gsrfan01 Not sure that was ever officially supported, though I did implement a direct connection to a VM on XenServer with better results than with the standard process. You're right, it may or may not work with much newer versions of XCP-NG/XS/CH.
