[ovirt-users] Best Storage Option: iSCSI/NFS/GlusterFS?

[Bryan Sockel]

Was reading over this post to the group about storage options.  I am more of 
a windows guy as appose to a linux guy, but am learning quickly and had a 
question.  You said that LACP will not provide extra band with (Especially 
with NFS).  Does the same hold true with GlusterFS.  We are currently using 
GlusterFS for the file replication piece.  Does Glusterfs take advantage of 
any multipathing?

Thanks


-----Original Message-----
From: Yaniv Kaul <ykaul at redhat.com>
To: Charles Tassell <ctassell at gmail.com>
Cc: users <users at ovirt.org>
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2017 10:40:00 +0300
Subject: Re: [ovirt-users] Best Storage Option: iSCSI/NFS/GlusterFS?



On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 9:20 AM, Charles Tassell <ctassell at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Everyone,

  I'm about to setup an oVirt cluster with two hosts hitting a Linux storage 
server.  Since the Linux box can provide the storage in pretty much any 
form, I'm wondering which option is "best." Our primary focus is on 
reliability, with performance being a close second.  Since we will only be 
using a single storage server I was thinking NFS would probably beat out 
GlusterFS, and that NFSv4 would be a better choice than NFSv3.  I had 
assumed that that iSCSI would be better performance wise, but from what I'm 
seeing online that might not be the case.

NFS 4.2 is better than NFS 3 in the sense that you'll get DISCARD support, 
which is nice.
Gluster probably requires 3 servers.
In most cases, I don't think people see the difference in performance 
between NFS and iSCSI. The theory is that block storage is faster, but in 
practice, most don't get to those limits where it matters really.


  Our servers will be using a 1G network backbone for regular traffic and a 
dedicated 10G backbone with LACP for redundancy and extra bandwidth for 
storage traffic if that makes a difference.

LCAP many times (especially on NFS) does not provide extra bandwidth, as the 
(single) NFS connection tends to be sticky to a single physical link.
It's one of the reasons I personally prefer iSCSI with multipathing.


  I'll probably try to do some performance benchmarks with 2-3 options, but 
the reliability issue is a little harder to test for.  Has anyone had any 
particularly bad experiences with a particular storage option?  We have been 
using iSCSI with a Dell MD3x00 SAN and have run into a bunch of issues with 
the multipath setup, but that won't be a problem with the new SAN since it's 
only got a single controller interface.

A single controller is not very reliable. If reliability is your primary 
concern, I suggest ensuring there is no single point of failure - or at 
least you are aware of all of them (does the storage server have redundant 
power supply? to two power sources? Of course in some scenarios it's an 
overkill and perhaps not practical, but you should be aware of your weak 
spots).

I'd stick with what you are most comfortable managing - creating, backing 
up, extending, verifying health, etc.
Y.



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