I have configured a host with pci passthrough for GPU pass through. Using
this knowledge I went ahead and configured nvme SSD pci pass through. On
the guest, I partitioned and mounted the SSD without any issues.
Searching google for this exact setup I only see results about "local
storage" where local storage = using a disk image on the hosts storage. So
I have come here to try and find out if there are any concerns or gripes or
issues with using nvme pci pass through compared to local storage.
Some more detail about the setup:
I have 2 identical hosts (nvidia gpu and also nvme pci SSD). A few weeks
ago when I started researching converting one of these systems over (from
native ubuntu) to ovirt using gpu pci pass through I found the information
about local storage. I have 1 host (host #1) set up with local storage mode
and the guest VM is using a disk image on this local storage.
Host 2 has an identical hardware setup but I did not configure local
storage for this host. Instead, I have the ovirt host OS installed on a
SATA HDD and the nvme SSD is in pci pass through to a different guest
instance.
What I notice is Host 2 disk performance is approx. +30% increase over host
#1 when running simple dd tests to write data to the disk. So at first
glance it appears the nvme pci pass through gives better performance and
this is desired, but I have not seen any ovirt documentation that explains
that this is supported or any guidelines on configuring such a setup.
Aside from the usual caveats when running pci pass through, are there any
other gotchya's when running this type of setup (pci nvme ssd pass
through)? I am trying to discover any unknowns about this before I use this
for real data. I have no previous experience with this and this is my main
reason for emailing the group.
Any insight appreciated.
Kind regards,
Tony Pearce