Topic: Cloud vs Dedicated Servers

[BlackBox]

In the past, I've always worked for companies that use dedicated serves within the office, and have full-time IT staff to maintain them.

I now work for a much smaller company, that is in the process of evaluating a much needed server upgrade, and while I still have many reservations about migrating to the cloud (i.e., security, client owned data, etc.) my new position requires that I take a step back and evaluate all possibilities and factor in the cost-aspect.

I've never used a cloud-based environment, and am not a fan of the prospect of loosing all connectivity in the event that our LAN connection is disrupted, but am open to the idea nonetheless.

Do any of you use cloud servers to store your CAD data, or had to weigh these same considerations already? What did you decide to do, and why?

Cheers

[dgorsman]

We don't use the cloud, but I'm also keeping an eye on it as our various business units and clients expand both in number and geographically.  If it does come to pass, it will be more for collaborating/sharing files with clients for now.  In the future I would expect it to allow the company to better use employee specialties without having to physically relocate them e.g. Civil3D grading specialist from the West coast, mechanical engineering from back East, and on-site surveying from here.

For what its worth, we have file servers, license servers, etc. in remote locations so connection worries aren't much different than using cloud services.

[cadtag]

Probably one of the more serious considerations is client expectations of confidentiality and security.  Anything posted to a cloud service, be it Azure, Dropbox, Google Drive, 360, or what have you, is not, and cannot be considered, confidential.  Remote files are, on all of those service, stored in the clear, unencrypted, and available to anyone who has access, whether a bad actor in the datacenter, or a former employee who still remembers how to get in, or through an error on one of your partners part.  In _theory_ - security at a large datacenter would be better than that at a small shop, but at the same time, the larger target much more attractive target.

As a design firm creating contract drawings and legal documents, the 'not my problem' seen in EULAs will not protect the firm if harm comes to a client due to cloud fubars or Target-style data breaches.  PEs cannot ethically disclaim responsibility, their license mandates adherence to a published code of ethics.

Beyond that, there's the chance (probability = unity) that access to the remote servers will be interrupted at some point for some period.  Anything from hurricanes, to a drunk backhoe operator tearing out the fiber optic lines.  How long can your employer stay in business with no access to his design data?

The rest, you probably have a good handle on all the other negatives --  and can look at possible advantages in your situation.  Servers for small operations are not exactly expensive though -- no real need for anything massive

(1)  AFAIK -- the only 'cloud' provider that takes confidentiality at all seriously is SpiderOak.  Data is encrypted before transmitting to their service, and stored encrypted.  You lose your password, you lose access to those files and can't get them back.  Short of NSA intervention....

[BlackBox]

We don't use the cloud, but I'm also keeping an eye on it as our various business units and clients expand both in number and geographically.  If it does come to pass, it will be more for collaborating/sharing files with clients for now.  In the future I would expect it to allow the company to better use employee specialties without having to physically relocate them e.g. Civil3D grading specialist from the West coast, mechanical engineering from back East, and on-site surveying from here.

For what its worth, we have file servers, license servers, etc. in remote locations so connection worries aren't much different than using cloud services.

Thanks for sharing, dgorsman.

We only have one office, and everything is centrally located now, housing both servers in the same building in which we work daily. Backups are currently to 2TB external drives.

The main appeal in my current situation, has everything to do with the maintenance & support services that come with cloud-based implementation, frankly.

I'm burning the candle at both ends just doing the CAD production I was brought on to do, in addition to interviewing new printer lease firms (two this week), hardware & software upgrades, making old & working computers 'library' machines for us to remote into on and off-site, and researching alternative for a $30K server proposal now (which seems incredibly expensive given my complete lack of experience here).

I'm no sys admin, and have little time to become one, although this situation has caused me to become interested to learn a great deal more.



If the tea leaves are any indicator, my role here will be evolving such that I oversee these sort of topics more and more (the owner is thrilled with how much I've been able to take of of his plate)... Perhaps when things slow down in the next month or so (I hope; most likely after I've helped bring this upgrade to fruition), I'll start looking into obtaining some MS Certifications, etc. as well.

Cheers

[BlackBox]

Probably one of the more serious considerations is client expectations of confidentiality and security.  Anything posted to a cloud service, be it Azure, Dropbox, Google Drive, 360, or what have you, is not, and cannot be considered, confidential.  Remote files are, on all of those service, stored in the clear, unencrypted, and available to anyone who has access, whether a bad actor in the datacenter, or a former employee who still remembers how to get in, or through an error on one of your partners part.  In _theory_ - security at a large datacenter would be better than that at a small shop, but at the same time, the larger target much more attractive target.

Thanks for your comments, cadtag.

For clarity, I do not mean anything public such as Dropbox, Google Drive, etc... I am only interested in private SSD cloud services (i.e., encrypted, scaleable, maintenance services, etc.).

As a design firm creating contract drawings and legal documents, the 'not my problem' seen in EULAs will not protect the firm if harm comes to a client due to cloud fubars or Target-style data breaches.  PEs cannot ethically disclaim responsibility, their license mandates adherence to a published code of ethics.

Beyond that, there's the chance (probability = unity) that access to the remote servers will be interrupted at some point for some period.  Anything from hurricanes, to a drunk backhoe operator tearing out the fiber optic lines.  How long can your employer stay in business with no access to his design data?

The rest, you probably have a good handle on all the other negatives --  and can look at possible advantages in your situation.  Servers for small operations are not exactly expensive though -- no real need for anything massive

(1)  AFAIK -- the only 'cloud' provider that takes confidentiality at all seriously is SpiderOak.  Data is encrypted before transmitting to their service, and stored encrypted.  You lose your password, you lose access to those files and can't get them back.  Short of NSA intervention....

I certainly do not know all of what needs to be considered yet, that's why I am reaching out to others. I just feel that the $30K+ price tag on the proposal we have now from our existing 3rd party IT firm is astronomical, and that there's got to be a superior alternative. The cost-savings for a cloud server is appealing, presuming no deal-breaker issues, but I'm still trying to fully wrap my brain around a topic I've historically discarded for various reasons due to my former work environments.

Only after I understand cloud server scenario better, can I even begin to understand a hybrid approach, but with what little I do grasp now the hybrid approach sounds to be the most secure (dedicated server here, backup to cloud, etc.), but seems as though it may be the most expensive option yet.

Lots of learning to do, and nowhere near enough time to do it to my satisfaction. 

[Bethrine]

Speaking from ignorance: I wonder if that price tag is what they charge due to setting up for cloud systems? 

[BlackBox]

Speaking from ignorance: I wonder if that price tag is what they charge due to setting up for cloud systems? 

The cost I mention is for new hardware, migration from old servers, and implementation of new Hyper-V, exchange, host, CALs, etc.

I've reached out to Dell and have them preparing a quote, which so far, is +/- 60% of the proposal price for hardware alone (which is the cheapest part of the entire spiel anyway), and includes additional items (i.e., new switches, etc.). They're (Dell is) working out the logistics of having a sub-contractor come to the office to 'plug-in' the new hardware, at which point the remote team would gain access and finalize the implementation to decrease the installation costs.


In any event, when all of this is said and done, I wonder if my brain will figuratively have stretch marks? 

My brain, not a normal, smart person's brain (like you guys); I'm not that smart to begin with, so I'm kind of concerned about everything I still need to learn over the next couple of weeks. 

[cadtag]

when you get a good handle on what you want, plz post a summary of your findings.  Heck, might be a good idea for a blog article on your website!

[BlackBox]

when you get a good handle on what you want, plz post a summary of your findings.

Will do. 

Heck, might be a good idea for a blog article on your website!

Oh yeah - I have a website!?! 

Not that I was 'good at it' before my newest employment opportunity, but certainly since, I've been terrible about taking content, tips, etc. that I post and consolidating it on my site. I do check the email daily though.

I haven't even updated one of my apps as being the "Most Downloaded Paid App in December"... Heck, even that post is out of date at this point  ; 15 countries is now 16 (thank you Norway!).

[cadtag]

Here's a relatively cad-specific consideration,  and it presumes that the company currently has a relative typical setup for project files, with all drawing stored in a common location, organized by project, with xref drawings,pdf/dgn/dwf underlays saved with common access underneath the project folders.

Since none of the cloud services area, AFAIK, 'xref aware', all of that data would need to be synched between the remote host and the local workstations.  That's apt to be quite a bit of information.  Good thing multi-terabyte drives are getting cheap.

Xref pathing would be maybe consistent, depending if the synch folder can be relocated in a consistent spot, rather than hardwired to a user-specific path.  Dropbox for example, defaults to c:\users\loginname\dropbox for the synch folder, so my absolute path to xrefs would be different than anyone elses.  IIRC 360 is even less configurableas far as local folder...

There's also lag time on the synch.  refreshing an updated 259Mb file to dropbox takes a fair amount of time on my home system, so depending on the connection speed to/from remote servers: If user A 10' one cube over updates a file user B is xreffing in, there will be a lag while A synches changes up to host, and host synchs changes down to B.  20 minutes?  vs 10 seconds on a local server.

[BlackBox]

Here's a relatively cad-specific consideration,  and it presumes that the company currently has a relative typical setup for project files, with all drawing stored in a common location, organized by project, with xref drawings,pdf/dgn/dwf underlays saved with common access underneath the project folders.

Since none of the cloud services area, AFAIK, 'xref aware', all of that data would need to be synched between the remote host and the local workstations.  That's apt to be quite a bit of information.  Good thing multi-terabyte drives are getting cheap.

Xref pathing would be maybe consistent, depending if the synch folder can be relocated in a consistent spot, rather than hardwired to a user-specific path.  Dropbox for example, defaults to c:\users\loginname\dropbox for the synch folder, so my absolute path to xrefs would be different than anyone elses.  IIRC 360 is even less configurableas far as local folder...

There's also lag time on the synch.  refreshing an updated 259Mb file to dropbox takes a fair amount of time on my home system, so depending on the connection speed to/from remote servers: If user A 10' one cube over updates a file user B is xreffing in, there will be a lag while A synches changes up to host, and host synchs changes down to B.  20 minutes?  vs 10 seconds on a local server.

We are using an organized project structure... One that will be enduring some minor changes to streamline moving forward regardless of local or cloud-based server upgrade (I'm mapping that, and our new share folder structure now)... Part of the task of restructuring our data, but unrelated to this specific topic, is that I've inherited an environment where we've historically used an application called Alchemy to organize project related documents, correspondence, etc. which is entirely cumbersome... Another topic for another thread.

Nonetheless, you bring up a great point of consideration... One that I can only speculate on, having never used a cloud-based environment.

What I can say, is that we're currently on a +/- 70MB/s bandwidth connection for internet (everyone streams audio/video throughout the work day, in addition to some iMeet/GoToMeeting/webinars, etc.), and that were we to migrate to a cloud-based environment, those 2TB backup drives we're currently using would be reallocated as expansion drives for our new workstations (since our boot drives are SSD). Even the 27" XPS all in one I just purchased and setup for the owner is i7, 2TB, 8GB RAM, Win8, so we *may* be fine with simply upgrading our bandwidth package.

I agree that this scenario would be cumbersome to deal with on the task by task level though... How seamless it may, or may not work would be the deal breaker, methinks.

Some of the companies I've had time to research offer a 30 day paid trial prior to any contracts, but I may want to coordinate such that we're only testing this new schema with a single new project that I'm working on dedicatedly for a bit, in order to truly evaluate how it works in a real-world project (one that I could easily replicate back to my local network if it's not working out).


In any event, I'm enjoying this discussion greatly; thanks to all for your comments.

Cheers

[ronjonp]

FWIW..

Just from a performance perspective, I'd have a local server and perhaps backup to the cloud. We have a remote office and a similar interwebs connection and drafting large projects is fairly painful.

[cadtag]

A local box of some kind would be needed for the License server as well, presuming of course that an organization is taking advantage of network licensing... Depends on the situation of course, but IME a 30% reduction in the number of CAD seats actually needed.

If content explorer is of any use to someone, that also would require a local server to crawl and index.  It's not something I personally can use here, but YMMV.  I expect that Winodws search and index services would be similarly affected.

[BlackBox]

when you get a good handle on what you want, plz post a summary of your findings.

Will do. 

... Here are my findings:


:: Cloud-Based Solution ::

Being such a small company, our CFO is essentially part time, and works for multiple companies in similar capacity. One of those other companies currently uses Rackspace.com for their cloud-based solution, and they absolutely love it. Supposedly, they're leasing their cloud-based server for +/- $500 per month, supporting 24 employees, etc. which sounds way too good to be true for what I've been looking at in a dedicated server + two migrations to bring us current from Server 2003 up to Server 2013.

So... I called Rackspace.com this morning in order to make a true apples-to-apples comparison... If that was a reasonable monthly lease price, then we'd be jumping at it today without hesitation.

In order to come close to, not even match the performance level we've specified with Dell's configuration, and even if we brought our own SQL license, their 60GB Performance Server would run us +/- $2,900 for an estimated 730 hours per month of dedicated, managed server access.

That does not even account for the required upgrade in bandwidth, and the Rackspace.com reps strongly urge the usage of at least a dedicated T1 (T3 prefered).


:: Dedicate, In-House Server ::

After considering several options, the server I ended up selecting is a 1U, Dell PowerEdge R620 rack server:

• Dual Oct-Core Intel Xeon E5-2640v2 Processors, 2.0GHz, 20M Cache, 7.2GT/s QPI, Turbo, HT, 8C, 95W, Max Mem 1600MHz
• Four 16GB RDIMM RAM, 1600MT/s, Low Volt, Dual Rank, x4 Data Width
• Two 300GB 15K RPM SAS 6Gbps 2.5in Hot-plug Hard Drives, RAID1
• Five 600GB 15K RPM SAS 6Gbps 2.5in Hot-plug Hard Drives, RAID5
• 3 years Dell ProSupport, immediate phone, and remote server access, or next business day on-site service
• Dell ProSupport can be extended to 7 years max

... Which will replace the pair of out-of-warranty, 32-bit Dell PowerEdge tower servers we're currently using, and frees up another office in the process.

All-in-all, while we're paying one-time, lump sum, this equates to +/- $650 investment over 36 months, and ends up being +/- half of that even with the additional cost of the 7 years extended warranty/support... If we grow faster than anticipated, it's expandable, and have the option of a plug-in NAS, another in-house, or cloud server for fault tolerance, etc. down the road.

We're also upgrading to a Dell PowerConnect 2848 (48 port) Gigabit switch, and maintaining our nightly backup using the 2TB external USB drives we already have for the time being; as NAS is not cost effective enough to justify replacing/reallocating said external drives at this time.


In turn, once the migrations are complete, I'm debating installing the hardware key ICPR licenses we currently use on even more out-dated Dell Dimensions (former workstations I've since replaced), to either the new workstations we have, or the soon to be available PowerEdge tower servers for the better processing speed, bus, etc. and add them back to the domain as 'library' computers that our engineers remote into from their ICPR calculations... I want to test one in each configuration to see how bad of an impact on their daily work it would in fact be.

Separately, you may want to skip Symantec's newest backup software, as the network side doesn't run on 2013, only 2010; which is ironic as the client side does run on newest... Supposedly they're working to correct that. Instead, we're just going to renew our existing backup software, which has not presented any issues to date.

We're also upgrading to MS Office 365 Midsize Business; Right now each per user, per month fee is reduced through Dell for less than what MS Lync is alone, and it provides all Office Professional applications on up to five devices per user (i.e., work, home, mobile, etc.), intranet space, a client facing website (if you don't already have one), web-based email (again, if you don't already have an exchange server), as well as plenty of OneDrive space for document sharing, etc. with clients in lieu of, or in addition to your FTP server.

Cheers

[ronjonp]

IMO .. Nice choice BB .. I have something similar and now my throughput speed is limited by Gbit tech. All is more than well on our part ... but we're a a small company.

[BlackBox]

IMO .. Nice choice BB .. I have something similar and now my throughput speed is limited by Gbit tech. All is more than well on our part ... but we're a a small company.

Cheers, ronjon; we've just crossed into the double-digits ourselves. 

[ChrisCarlson]

The spec's on that sever seem odd for the intended usage. The way I read this topic it will be used for storage but the specs seem similar to an application server (Apache, SQL, etc).


Hard drive space seems quite limited, assuming the raid5 array of 600GB disks will be used for storage? I can't recall the formula we used but I want to say we took 2013's usage, accounted for 20% yearly growth and figured a 5 year hardware cycle.

For the CAD storage drive we now have this

[BlackBox]

The spec's on that sever seem odd for the intended usage. The way I read this topic it will be used for storage but the specs seem similar to an application server (Apache, SQL, etc).

How so? I'm unsure what I could have stated that would give you that idea. 

Hard drive space seems quite limited, assuming the raid5 array of 600GB disks will be used for storage? I can't recall the formula we used but I want to say we took 2013's usage, accounted for 20% yearly growth and figured a 5 year hardware cycle.

For the CAD storage drive we now have this

Again, I'm not sure that I understand your meaning....

The RAID5 array proposed is more than triple what we're currently consuming on our existing file server (I work for a very small company; hiring me put the employee count into double-digits)... Even at your proposed 20% yearly growth, we would have to use this exact configuration (with no additional hot plug drives, NAS, etc.), and never archive, or delete any data created, for +/- 8 years to even reach capacity.

With the max extended warranty/support being 7 years, and the fact that we can expand RAID5 on the fly, both internally using the available hot plug drive slots, or externally via NAS, secondary server, etc. I feel very comfortable with our options for growth... I'm no expert at this, so kindly educate me where my logic may be wrong.

Cheers

[ronjonp]

BB,

When you get your new server, would you mind doing a disk benchmark on your RAID5 array? I went with a RAID 10 configuration for the performance and am curious how much faster it actually is. Also ... what raid controller did you choose?

[BlackBox]

When you get your new server, would you mind doing a disk benchmark on your RAID5 array? I went with a RAID 10 configuration for the performance and am curious how much faster it actually is.

I don't mind at all. 

I'm not a network architect, nor a sysadmin, and have had to learn all of this through the process... I cannot speak to the advantages, nor disadvantages of either, frankly.

Also ... what raid controller did you choose?

The RAID controller that is included with our PER620 server spec from Dell is a PERC H710P.

[ronjonp]

Same Raid controller here .. it will be interesting to see the numbers.

I'm not a network architect, nor a sysadmin, and have had to learn all of this through the process... I cannot speak to the advantages, nor disadvantages of either, frankly.

Same here .. I'm just a code writing CAD monkey breakin stuff  :kewl:

[BlackBox]

I'm not a network architect, nor a sysadmin, and have had to learn all of this through the process... I cannot speak to the advantages, nor disadvantages of either, frankly.

Same Raid controller here .. it will be interesting to see the numbers.

Hrmmm... Read this, and am now curious as well.

The original spec for the RAID1 + RAID5 combo came from our existing 3rd party IT firm's server infrastructure proposal (again, being a small firm, we have no in-house IT; err, I guess now me? ).

[ronjonp]

I have read that article as well as many others. The conclusion I came to was if you have the money and don't need all the space go with RAID 10. It has all the benefits of RAID 5 plus an added performance boost and it can sustain two drives falling (one out of each mirror) out of the array where RAID 5 cannot. 

[BlackBox]

I have read that article as well as many others. The conclusion I came to was if you have the money and don't need all the space go with RAID 10. It has all the benefits of RAID 5 plus an added performance boost and it can sustain two drives falling (one out of each mirror) out of the array where RAID 5 cannot. 

I appreciate that; I've already fired off an inquiry to my network architect at Dell who helped get us to where we are now.

Given the equal mirror for RAID10, how would that work with the 5 drives I'm getting? Or am I misunderstanding the configuration?

[ChrisCarlson]

Well that sounds like plenty of disk space then  :kewl:


Not possible with 5 drives, would need to add a 6th.

(6) 600GB drives in RAID10 would equal 1.8TB estimated space

[BlackBox]

Well that sounds like plenty of disk space then  :kewl:

Cheers dude. :beer:

Not possible with 5 drives, would need to add a 6th.

(6) 600GB drives in RAID10 would equal 1.8TB estimated space

While RAID5 may very well be (significantly?) slower than RAID10 in a write speed shootout... At the end of this migration we will still have jumped from 32-Bit server, with a single Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5506 processor, 4GB RAM, 7.2K RPM mechanical drives, 10/100 switch, 32-Bit WinXP Dell Dimension computers with 4GB RAM, 7.2K RPM mechanical drives, 1GB Video cards, and Land Desktop 2004 (used as vanilla AutoCAD; sigh... You don't even want to ask)... To soon using 64-Bit server, with dual Oct-Core Intel Xeon E5 2640 processors, 64GB RAM, 15K RPM mechanical drives, Gigabit switch, and 64-Bit Win7 Dell Precision T3600 workstations with 32GB RAM, SSD, 3GB Video cards, and IDS 2014.

Especially given how little we will have spent in total (and I still need to order another workstation and monitors this week), I'm certainly not disappointed with the results thus far. 

[ronjonp]

With that jump in technology you're gonna have fun

[BlackBox]

With that jump in technology you're gonna have fun

When the owner hired me, my initial task was to 'bring us into the 21st century'... I feel confident that I've set us up for success in what I've been able to accomplish in less than 90 days. 


Not particularly looking forward to working awkward hours during the migration, but I'm sure to learn a lot; being salary now, instead of hourly makes it much easier on me anyway... Now to inform my 3rd party IT firm that their services are not longer needed.

[JohnK]

I just noticed this thread. Forgive me for commenting without reading all of it (yet) but I quickly scanned this thread and noticed that you are getting a server. …In addition to the he RAID discussion, you have plenty of what you need to give the ZFS (file system) a try; and to make things extra easy, go download FreeNAS and give it a whirl.

As a quick test, take an old decent cad machine and test it out on that:
You should try with:
1. 64bit machine
2. minimum 4gb ram
3. you'll need two hard drives.
    a. find the smallest one you can and it will be master dedicated for the OS.
    b. the second will be reformatted by FreeNAS and be used for the storage.
4. Install the OS and go to the IP the OS lists after install is done.

This can make for a super quick server setup.

[jonesy]

A previous company I worked at was a small office of a big multi-national trying to get into the UK market.  As it was a small office (10-20 people) It was decided that the CAD person should look after the network on a day-to-day business, but they engaged an IT services company to come in on an "as-and-when-needed" basis. This company had remote access to allow them to fault-find when they were given access.
This set up worked well for that office (mainly as I didnt feel confident enough to be trained as a full-on network manager as well as do my real job)

[BlackBox]

It's been a few months with the new server, and thought I'd revisit this thread given current conditions....

Hard drive space seems quite limited, assuming the raid5 array of 600GB disks will be used for storage? I can't recall the formula we used but I want to say we took 2013's usage, accounted for 20% yearly growth and figured a 5 year hardware cycle.

For the CAD storage drive we now have this

Again, I'm not sure that I understand your meaning....

The RAID5 array proposed is more than triple what we're currently consuming on our existing file server (I work for a very small company; hiring me put the employee count into double-digits)... Even at your proposed 20% yearly growth, we would have to use this exact configuration (with no additional hot plug drives, NAS, etc.), and never archive, or delete any data created, for +/- 8 years to even reach capacity.

With the max extended warranty/support being 7 years, and the fact that we can expand RAID5 on the fly, both internally using the available hot plug drive slots, or externally via NAS, secondary server, etc. I feel very comfortable with our options for growth... I'm no expert at this, so kindly educate me where my logic may be wrong.

The storage capacity our now former 3rd party IT firm specified was horribly insufficient.

In order to spread the available storage capacity over the term of the warranty, we'd have to only consume 2.5% per quarter. At your recommendation, I estimated 5% quarterly (20% annually), which seemed much more realistic. However, I was not prepared for our actual consumption, which has been +/-17% in the past quarter alone.

For this reason I am exploring options now to increase our overall storage capacity, and backup infrastructure in kind.

When you get your new server, would you mind doing a disk benchmark on your RAID5 array? I went with a RAID 10 configuration for the performance and am curious how much faster it actually is.

I don't have the raw numbers in front of me (did the test a couple of weeks ago, finally!), and RAID 5 is terribly slower than the numbers you reported... To anyone considering the two, if your intent is performance focused, go with RAID 10... Something I may be doing in my legacy server upgrades if I stick with the 6 x 4TB SSHD drives (x2 servers) we're discussing in another thread.

Cheers

[ronjonp]

I don't have the raw numbers in front of me (did the test a couple of weeks ago, finally!), and RAID 5 is terribly slower than the numbers you reported... To anyone considering the two, if your intent is performance focused, go with RAID 10... Something I may be doing in my legacy server upgrades if I stick with the 6 x 4TB SSHD drives (x2 servers) we're discussing in another thread.

Cheers

I'd be interested in seeing those numbers when you get a chance. 

[BlackBox]

I don't have the raw numbers in front of me (did the test a couple of weeks ago, finally!), and RAID 5 is terribly slower than the numbers you reported... To anyone considering the two, if your intent is performance focused, go with RAID 10... Something I may be doing in my legacy server upgrades if I stick with the 6 x 4TB SSHD drives (x2 servers) we're discussing in another thread.

Cheers

I'd be interested in seeing those numbers when you get a chance. 

I'll start it again in a few... We you running from physical server, or within VM hosted on same?

[BlackBox]

When you get your new server, would you mind doing a disk benchmark on your RAID5 array? I went with a RAID 10 configuration for the performance and am curious how much faster it actually is. Also ... what raid controller did you choose?

I don't have the raw numbers in front of me (did the test a couple of weeks ago, finally!), and RAID 5 is terribly slower than the numbers you reported... To anyone considering the two, if your intent is performance focused, go with RAID 10... Something I may be doing in my legacy server upgrades if I stick with the 6 x 4TB SSHD drives (x2 servers) we're discussing in another thread.

I'd be interested in seeing those numbers when you get a chance. 

I'll start it again in a few... We you running from physical server, or within VM hosted on same?

I may have mistakenly left the default 1000MB selected in my previous test, whereas today I changed it to 100MB per your screenshot... This seems much, much closer to the numbers you reported (copied above)?  *confused*

Code: [Select]

  Test : 100 MB [E: 64.4% (1438.2/2233.4 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2014/09/10 14:22:46
    OS : Windows Server 2012 R2 Server Standard (full installation) [6.3 Build 9600] (x64)

           Sequential Read :  1717.555 MB/s
          Sequential Write :  2066.245 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :  1598.514 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :  1815.414 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    64.653 MB/s [ 15784.4 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    64.535 MB/s [ 15755.6 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   292.127 MB/s [ 71320.2 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   294.022 MB/s [ 71782.7 IOPS]


Code: [Select]

  Test : 1000 MB [E: 64.4% (1438.2/2233.4 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2014/09/10 14:35:45
    OS : Windows Server 2012 R2 Server Standard (full installation) [6.3 Build 9600] (x64)

           Sequential Read :  1159.013 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   548.634 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   381.364 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   281.635 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     3.269 MB/s [   798.2 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    11.761 MB/s [  2871.3 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :    17.248 MB/s [  4210.8 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :    27.238 MB/s [  6650.0 IOPS]


[BlackBox]

... And the boot/OS array; RAID 1:

Code: [Select]

  Test : 100 MB [C: 20.4% (56.8/278.4 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2014/09/10 14:10:29
    OS : Windows Server 2012 R2 Server Standard (full installation) [6.3 Build 9600] (x64)

           Sequential Read :  1711.044 MB/s
          Sequential Write :  2066.930 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :  1596.115 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :  1773.494 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    63.834 MB/s [ 15584.4 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    65.175 MB/s [ 15911.9 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   295.628 MB/s [ 72174.7 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   298.133 MB/s [ 72786.5 IOPS]


Code: [Select]

  Test : 1000 MB [C: 20.4% (56.8/278.4 GB)] (x5)
  Date : 2014/09/10 14:46:11
    OS : Windows Server 2012 R2 Server Standard (full installation) [6.3 Build 9600] (x64)

           Sequential Read :   362.578 MB/s
          Sequential Write :   182.583 MB/s
         Random Read 512KB :   436.543 MB/s
        Random Write 512KB :   345.761 MB/s
    Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     4.418 MB/s [  1078.6 IOPS]
   Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    16.877 MB/s [  4120.3 IOPS]
   Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :     6.247 MB/s [  1525.3 IOPS]
  Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :    16.948 MB/s [  4137.8 IOPS]


[ronjonp]

Interesting .. Just to be sure we're testing apples to apples, your Raid controller is a PERC H710p Adapter RAID Controller w 1GB NV Cache and your drives are 600GB 15K RPM SAS 6Gbps 3.5in Hot-plug Hard Drive ?

Test : 100 MB [E: 18.5% (515.5/2791.7 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2014/09/10 11:55:09
OS : Windows Server 2012 Server Standard (full installation) [6.2 Build 9200] (x64)

Sequential Read :  2200.909 MB/s
Sequential Write :  2413.114 MB/s
Random Read 512KB :  1972.638 MB/s
Random Write 512KB :  2042.930 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :    88.306 MB/s [ 21559.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    77.442 MB/s [ 18906.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :   420.508 MB/s [102663.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :   344.331 MB/s [ 84065.2 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [E: 18.5% (515.5/2791.7 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2014/09/10 12:02:33
OS : Windows Server 2012 Server Standard (full installation) [6.2 Build 9200] (x64)

Sequential Read :  1816.431 MB/s
Sequential Write :   949.224 MB/s
Random Read 512KB :   509.119 MB/s
Random Write 512KB :   527.959 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) :     6.781 MB/s [  1655.4 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) :    33.320 MB/s [  8134.7 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) :    28.267 MB/s [  6901.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) :    58.317 MB/s [ 14237.7 IOPS]

 

[BlackBox]

Interesting .. Just to be sure we're testing apples to apples, your Raid controller is a PERC H710p Adapter RAID Controller w 1GB NV Cache and your drives are 600GB 15K RPM SAS 6Gbps 3.5in Hot-plug Hard Drive ?

Correct:

Also ... what raid controller did you choose?

The RAID controller that is included with our PER620 server spec from Dell is a PERC H710P.

I've added the 100MB Edit, Copy data to my earlier posts, and will do same with 1000MB test result data when done.

So... What does each number mean exactly, given I'm using SAS and not SSD?

Given these numbers, how does that 'difference' make you feel about your RAID 10 configuration, given the loss of +/- half your available capacity?

Cheers

[ronjonp]

I don't have the raw numbers in front of me (did the test a couple of weeks ago, finally!), and RAID 5 is terribly slower than the numbers you reported... To anyone considering the two, if your intent is performance focused, go with RAID 10... Something I may be doing in my legacy server upgrades if I stick with the 6 x 4TB SSHD drives (x2 servers) we're discussing in another thread.

Cheers

I'd be interested in seeing those numbers when you get a chance. 

I'll start it again in a few... We you running from physical server, or within VM hosted on same?

Physical server.

Given these numbers, how does that 'difference' make you feel about your RAID 10 configuration, given the loss of +/- half your available capacity?

The performance difference is not a much as advertised but still faster on all tests. If not constrained by disk space, I'd do it again .

- Sequential Read : 28.1% -
 - Sequential Write : 16.8% -
 - Random Read 512KB : 23.4% -
 - Random Write 512KB : 12.5% -
 - Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 36.6% -
 - Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 20.0% -
 - Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 43.9% -
 - Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 17.1% -

[BlackBox]

I've added the 100MB Edit, Copy data to my earlier posts, and will do same with 1000MB test result data when done.

Both 100MB, and 1000MB test results have been added to my earlier posts, for boot, and data partitions respectively.

[Edit] - Looks like I'm using 6.3 Build 9600 vs. your 6.2 Build 9200, as well.