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ESXi 5.1 + NFS on ReadyNAS NVX + RAIDiator 4.2.22 - fixed
I'm having some time out issues where ESXi 5.1 (two HP DL360 G5's) accessing NFS share on the ReadyNAS NVX.
The system seems to hang and time out for a couple of seconds while doing storage vmotion or new vm guest creation. (Any high I/0 on the nas via the ESXi host seems to produce a time out)
In vsphere under storage the NAS disappears (becomes unavailable) for about 2-10 seconds.
I see that the NVX is listed on HCL for VMWare so it should be ok? Maybe?
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/detail.php?deviceCategory=san&productid=13212&deviceCategory=san&partner=65&releases=171&arrayTypes=3&arrayTestConfigs=12&isSVA=1&page=1&display_interval=10&sortColumn=Partner&sortOrder=Asc
Only services enabled: CIFS and NFS on the ReadyNAS NVX
Model: ReadyNAS NVX Business Edition [X-RAID2]
Firmware: RAIDiator 4.2.22
Memory: 1024 MB [6-6-6-24 DDR2]
Volume C: Online, X-RAID2, 2 disks, 77% of 913 GB used
NFS Share settings:
Select number of nfs threads: 16
Write-enabled hosts: (IP's of the ESXi 5.1 hosts)
Root privilege-enabled hosts: (IP's of the ESXi 5.1 hosts)
Enable disk write cache. Checked.
Disable full data journaling. Checked.
I reverted back to ESXi 4.1 this weekend because of the time out issues with ESXi 5.1, ESXi 4.1 seems to work just fine. I can hammer the NAS and it never drops from ESX storage.
I did see the pre 4.2.19 threads about NFS/iSCSI having issues on ESXi 5.0 and 5.1, but the HCL shows that 4.2.20 fixed that. (Currently running 4.2.22)
Am I mising a config setting some place? Is there something in ESXi 5.1 NFS settings that I need to change?
Do I need to disable the VAAI support in ESXi or does that only apply to iSCSI?
Any direction would be apprecated!
The system seems to hang and time out for a couple of seconds while doing storage vmotion or new vm guest creation. (Any high I/0 on the nas via the ESXi host seems to produce a time out)
In vsphere under storage the NAS disappears (becomes unavailable) for about 2-10 seconds.
I see that the NVX is listed on HCL for VMWare so it should be ok? Maybe?
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/detail.php?deviceCategory=san&productid=13212&deviceCategory=san&partner=65&releases=171&arrayTypes=3&arrayTestConfigs=12&isSVA=1&page=1&display_interval=10&sortColumn=Partner&sortOrder=Asc
Only services enabled: CIFS and NFS on the ReadyNAS NVX
Model: ReadyNAS NVX Business Edition [X-RAID2]
Firmware: RAIDiator 4.2.22
Memory: 1024 MB [6-6-6-24 DDR2]
Volume C: Online, X-RAID2, 2 disks, 77% of 913 GB used
NFS Share settings:
Select number of nfs threads: 16
Write-enabled hosts: (IP's of the ESXi 5.1 hosts)
Root privilege-enabled hosts: (IP's of the ESXi 5.1 hosts)
Enable disk write cache. Checked.
Disable full data journaling. Checked.
I reverted back to ESXi 4.1 this weekend because of the time out issues with ESXi 5.1, ESXi 4.1 seems to work just fine. I can hammer the NAS and it never drops from ESX storage.
I did see the pre 4.2.19 threads about NFS/iSCSI having issues on ESXi 5.0 and 5.1, but the HCL shows that 4.2.20 fixed that. (Currently running 4.2.22)
Am I mising a config setting some place? Is there something in ESXi 5.1 NFS settings that I need to change?
Do I need to disable the VAAI support in ESXi or does that only apply to iSCSI?
Any direction would be apprecated!
6 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- In my experience iSCSI is the better storage protocol when using it with VMware. iSCSI on ReadyNAS is faster than NFS on VMware. Otherwise I think you have a NIC or NIC driver issues...
- I'm very interested in the 'official response' on this as I just rolled out 5.1 and am connecting to an NVX over NFS for the bulk of the VM storage. I am also seeing delays though I do not have experience with this environment under 4.1 to know if they would have existed then also.
IMHO NFS is preferable to iSCSI for several reasons, easier access to snapshots, multiple host access is a no brainer, thin provisioned VMDK's are just that - thin provisioned leaving the rest of the volume available, performance can actually be better than SW iSCSI and when it isn't its very, very close. Bare metal implementations can't get much simpler then when you have an NFS export shared between two VM servers.
I suppose it can't hurt to disable VAAI (as I don't believe the RN supports it):# esxcli system settings advanced set --int-value 0 --option /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedMove
# esxcli system settings advanced set --int-value 0 --option /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedInit
# esxcli system settings advanced set --int-value 0 --option /VMFS3/HardwareAcceleratedLocking
Unless the "official" recommendation is to downgrade to 4.2.20? :( - I am seeing similar problems with NFS after upgrading to ESXi 5.1
ReadyNAS firmware 4.2.22, ESXi 5.1 on HP BL460c/c7000, GSM7352Sv2 switch w/jumbo frames enabled.
Everything worked fine on ESXi 5.0, performance fell through the floor with ESXi 5.1
Is downgrading to 4.2.20 a fix ? - For me it was jumbo frames is enabled.
On the readynas side I had enabled it, but I missed setting the MTU settings to 9000 in ESXi
Purring along like a kitten. - Go with iSCSI. Sotrage has been great from my experience. Also, it has few to no problems with working with NAS too.
- I had this issue wth NFS and ESXi 5.x and ReadyNAS 6.1.8, the "fix" is to change the advanced setting NFS.MaxQueueDepth to 64 either in Vcenter or on the ESXi host itself - see this KB article from VMWare http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2016122 whilst this talks about NetApp the VMWare community have this issue across multiple NAS vendors including ReadyNAS
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