Block OR File Storage for VM

[ABHILASHR]

Hi there,

Recently i have seen people suggest to go for NAS Data Storage for VMs than Block with VMFS?

Can experts say why? Is that True? I always believe that Block will give better performance.

Cheers

Abhilash

[sahil_anand]

Hi Abhilash,

Both block and file level are equally competent, I have seen block level is comparatively better as compared to file level, But you can put larger number of VM on nas datastore, it also gives you flexibility while managing large number of VM as compared to block level, where you can’t mount data store on any unix box.

I suggest you to go read NetApp TRs and chose best possible solution for yourself.

http://www.netapp.com/templates/mediaView?m=tr-3704.pdf

http://www.netapp.com/templates/mediaView?m=tr-3770.pdf

http://www.netapp.com/templates/mediaView?m=tr-3705.pdf

Thanks,

Sahil

[sudheerns76]

I am out of the office until 25/03/2012.

I am not available from 23rd to 25th March due to Public Holiday in

Bangalore and I will be out of station . Please reach out to Steve

Lee/India/IBM, for any Solution queries in my absence. For any management

queries please reach out to Sundar Subramanian1/India/IBM.

For emergency I can be reachable on Mobile Numbers - 9900111441 /

9886395241.

I Apologies for any Inconvenience and Thanks in Advance for your

co-operation.

Note: This is an automated response to your message "[Products &

Solutions] - Re: Block OR File Storage for VM" sent on 23/3/12 12:49:09.

This is the only notification you will receive while this person is away.

[sudheerns76]

I am out of the office until 25/03/2012.

I am not available from 23rd to 25th March due to Public Holiday in

Bangalore and I will be out of station . Please reach out to Steve

Lee/India/IBM, for any Solution queries in my absence. For any management

queries please reach out to Sundar Subramanian1/India/IBM.

For emergency I can be reachable on Mobile Numbers - 9900111441 /

9886395241.

I Apologies for any Inconvenience and Thanks in Advance for your

co-operation.

Note: This is an automated response to your message "[Products &

Solutions] - Block OR File Storage for VM" sent on 23/3/12 11:48:13.

This is the only notification you will receive while this person is away.

[arunchak]

HI,

Few advantages of NFS:

• Provisioning is a breeze
• You get the advantage of VMDK thin Provisioning since it's the default setting over NFS
• You can expand/decrease the NFS volume on the fly and realize the effect of the operation on the ESX server with the click of the datastore "refresh" button.
• You don't have to deal with VMFS or RDMs so you have no dilemma here
• No single disk I/O queue, so your performance is strictly dependent upon the size of the pipe and the disk array.
• You don't have to deal with FC switches, zones, HBAs, and identical LUN IDs across ESX servers
• You can restore (at least with NetApp you can), multiple VMs, individual VMs, or files within VMs.
• You can instantaneously clone (NetApp Flexclone), a single VM, or multiple VMs
• You can also backup whole VMs, or files within VMs

<source> http://storagefoo.blogspot.in/2007/09/vmware-over-nfs.html (suggest you to go through this blog... whatever he talks makes real sense).

  So if NFS, NetApp does Lead

Still the choice of vmfs vs NFS is under your descretion.

For SAN, EMC has this SRDF mirror (Symmetrix) and Clarrion for considerably small storage. And EMC Centra for NAS.

With NetApp same storage (FAS) can be used for SAN or NAS (Again advantageous here, if you plan to change your environment from NAS to SAN in a future point of time you can use the same storage unlike EMC).

Hope this is useful.

Also check out this link for more info: https://communities.netapp.com/thread/20218

Thanks,

  Arun

[sudheerns76]

I am out of the office until 25/03/2012.

I am not available from 23rd to 25th March due to Public Holiday in

Bangalore and I will be out of station . Please reach out to Steve

Lee/India/IBM, for any Solution queries in my absence. For any management

queries please reach out to Sundar Subramanian1/India/IBM.

For emergency I can be reachable on Mobile Numbers - 9900111441 /

9886395241.

I Apologies for any Inconvenience and Thanks in Advance for your

co-operation.

Note: This is an automated response to your message "[Products &

Solutions] - Re: Block OR File Storage for VM" sent on 24/3/12 17:22:38.

This is the only notification you will receive while this person is away.