esxi ESXi - HP MicroServer N40L Performance

[CPressland]

Any updates Budman?

[CPressland]

Well it looks like tweaking things have improved throughput a lot!

Currently downloading at 5.7MB/s on sabNZBd and network throughput seams to be exceptional. The biggest issue I have now is that sabNZBd requires the two CPU cores to keep up, and pfSense is demanding about 40% CPU time to route from WAN > LAN. So it looks like my next port of call will either be optimising pfSense or moving it to it's own box. Need to find an Atom ITX box compatible with BSD with Dual-NICs.

I'd use the Raspberry Pi but I really doubt that'll be able to provide the bandwidth for this connection.

[+BudMan MVC]

I saw something somewhere about getting pfsense to run on the Pi, but what other nic you going to use - thought it only came with with 1

So how much cpu does your sabNZBd use of the host? You say you have to give it access to both cores?

And pfsense is using 40% use when downloading at that speed.. Dude 5.7MBps -- that is freaking screaming!!! Your on a what 50Mbps connection?

So that is not something your doing 24/7 is it? So what if your host is taxed for part of the day?

As to my tweaking settings -- I got sidetracked, helping my son move into his new house this weekend, and me and the wife had our 27th anniversary as well. So not a lot of computer time the last few days ;)

What settings have you changed that your now at those speeds.. Just the vcmi thing?

[Hoolers]

Thanks for the work chaps, gives me somethings to try also :-)

[CPressland]

I saw something somewhere about getting pfsense to run on the Pi, but what other nic you going to use - thought it only came with with 1

The idea is using a Smart Switch to separate the LAN and WAN traffic with two VLANs. Got a LOT of work to do to even get BSD to boot on the device, I'll deal with Networking some other time. But, in low bandwidth situations, this is a great idea.

So how much cpu does your sabNZBd use of the host? You say you have to give it access to both cores?

During downloading at 50Mbps it consumes approx 50% of CPU Time, but repairing and extracting uses an equal amount. So with one core, if I have queued downloads, they drop to 2.5MB/s, with two cores, I can maintain 5.9MB/s almost 90% of the time.

And pfsense is using 40% use when downloading at that speed.. Dude 5.7MBps -- that is freaking screaming!!! Your on a what 50Mbps connection?

Yep - 50Mbps Connection - going up to 100Mbps in a few weeks so will need to look at moving pfSense to dedicated Atom/ITX Hardware, especially with the VPN being taxed so heavily at the moment.

So that is not something your doing 24/7 is it? So what if your host is taxed for part of the day?

I've got Sickbeard setup to do most downloading during the early hours of the morning. Any downloading during the day isn't very common over Usenet, thats mostly slow HTTP downloads without any VM involvement (beyond pfSense)

As to my tweaking settings -- I got sidetracked, helping my son move into his new house this weekend, and me and the wife had our 27th anniversary as well. So not a lot of computer time the last few days ;)

Well congratulations on that front!!! 27 years is a long time, I've just rolled over the two year mark myself :D.

Regarding the Tweaks, take your time - no rush.

What settings have you changed that your now at those speeds.. Just the vcmi thing?

Disabling IPv6 and tunnelling completely, tweaking MTU's and such. Not anything as advanced as what you've done, but simply looking for things that can reduce network overhead.

Thanks for the work chaps, gives me somethings to try also :-)

Great - Keep us all posted on any discoveries you make.

[+BudMan MVC]

Yeah no reason to have that ipv6 enabled if not going to be using it. But what have you done to MTUs? Not something I would suggest be changed. Unless you going to run jumbo -- and since most of what your doing is downloading from the internet.. Jumbo seems pointless.. Moving files across your own network, ok sure. But clearly the internet does not support jumbo frames ;)

[CPressland]

Unless you going to run jumbo -- and since most of what your doing is downloading from the internet.. Jumbo seems pointless.. Moving files across your own network, ok sure. frames ;)

This is how the download process goes.

NZB is handed to sabNZBd via Chrome Extension > sabNZBd is running on VM on 500GB DataStore with 100GB VMHD on 250GB Stock DataStore for Temporary Storage. > File finishes downloading and is repaired and pieced together on Temporary Storage Partition > File is handed over to HP MicroServer N36L for Storage and Media Retrieval.

It's only in this last phase that Jumbo Frames makes a difference, even if only minor.

While the uTorrent VM just reads and writes directly to the N36L as it's low bandwidth.

[IceBlackIce]

Id like to know the feedback of the microserver owners regarding the esxi performance...are you able to run 3/4 vms at the same time? Testing wise I would need to have 3 Windows 2008 plus a workstation and maybe a pfsense acting as gw...does it start to choke?

My current lab is being done in a laptop with a i7 but the disk performance is not the best, does the esxi recognize the raid if its configured in the microserver?

Thanks

[jpsj]

so lets compare build -- I am using

VMware ESXi 5.0.0 build-623860 from VM, are you running the same or you using the HP builds?

BTW - question for you, do you have or do you know how to enable the other hardware listings in the health section.. I have tried installing the cim providers from HP.. But has not added anything.. Would like to see fan and hdd, etc.

Budman did you manage to sort HDD,fan health readings in the end? would like to see this on my esxi microserver build too.

[+BudMan MVC]

no -- I will readdress at later date, but I just don't think esxi is officially supported on it - so why you don't get those readings.

[CPressland]

Id like to know the feedback of the microserver owners regarding the esxi performance...are you able to run 3/4 vms at the same time? Testing wise I would need to have 3 Windows 2008 plus a workstation and maybe a pfsense acting as gw...does it start to choke?

My current lab is being done in a laptop with a i7 but the disk performance is not the best, does the esxi recognize the raid if its configured in the microserver?

Thanks

I've got the current setup on my HP MicroServer,

pfSense - 512MB - 1 CPU Core

Windows Server 2008 R2 - Domain Controller - 1024MB - 1 CPU Core

Windows Server 2008 R2 - Absolute Manage Server - 1024MB - 1 CPU Core

Windows Server 2008 R2 - Downloads Server (SAB) - 2 CPU Cores

So thats 4 VMs and my setup is completely responsive, no issues to complain about these days.

RAID in the HP MicroServer is Software based (FakeRAID), so ESXi won't detect it, but if you install a HP SAS Expander Card and a real RAID Controller you'll be fine.

[n_K]

pfsense on a pi?

If you're gonna be using ANY kind of IPS/IDS like snort, do NOT EVEN TRY IT. The performance you will get will be very VERY slow.

There's a huge amount of problems with the networking on the pi, too much network usage will cause USB to crash and even crash the pi itself.

Treat the pi as an unpatched unprotected windows 95 alpha computer in the year 2000, it isn't very good.

[CPressland]

pfsense on a pi?

If you're gonna be using ANY kind of IPS/IDS like snort, do NOT EVEN TRY IT. The performance you will get will be very VERY slow.

There's a huge amount of problems with the networking on the pi, too much network usage will cause USB to crash and even crash the pi itself.

Treat the pi as an unpatched unprotected windows 95 alpha computer in the year 2000, it isn't very good.

Well, BSD Doesn't even work on ARM at the moment, and the Firmware is a little unstable right now anyway, once things improve then there is no reason why pfSense wouldn't run on a RPi providing it had a smart switch to handle most of the Routing / Switching.

[lemano]

Hello,

Like you, I just installed esxi 5 on a internal USB key for my HP MicroServer.

After reading the 11 pages of post, I know they are not exactly the change to be made on my VM (Windows and pfsense) for optimal performance networks.

thank you for your help

Internal USB : esxi 5

Datastore 1 - 250gb on sata internal

PHYSICAL RDM - 250gb disk 2.5 : on bay 1

[+John Teacake MVC]

Id like to know the feedback of the microserver owners regarding the esxi performance...are you able to run 3/4 vms at the same time? Testing wise I would need to have 3 Windows 2008 plus a workstation and maybe a pfsense acting as gw...does it start to choke?

My current lab is being done in a laptop with a i7 but the disk performance is not the best, does the esxi recognize the raid if its configured in the microserver?

Thanks

I have 3 VM's Running No issue. I could easily get 4 if I took the Mem and CPU down. By the way I did upgrade to 8GB.

1 x OpenFiler (NAS, Stores my Camera Snapshots too)

1 x 2003 Enterprise (But of Torrenting, Print Server and Occasionally BONIC, General Testing of bits and bobs)

1 x 2008 Enterprise (Running BF Bot Manager Program (Dedicated) ...Horse Racing Bot Program)

[picaresqu3]

SK[' timestamp=1335380702' post='594824025]

I have the N36L version of this box. Love it to bits for playing about on. Running ESXi 5 and yes the slowest thing in this box really are the drives. I have three discs and try to stagger my VM's across them so no disc is really doing too much work.

I've have had 1 x 2008 R2 DC, 2 x Exchange 2010 running on 2008 R2, 1 x Windows 7 and a Arch Linux. They run well as long as each one isnt under too much load (Disc I/O).

Anyone managed to get OSX working? Works fine on a machine in my office running an Intel CPU but on this Microserver it just sits with a grey apple logo. I figure its the AMD CPU and pretty much given up trying now.

ESXi 5 works on the 36L?? I thought it wasn't compatible o_O

I run 3x VM's on the N36L as well - 2x WS2008R2 and 1x XP - they run simultaneously and pretty well for performance as well. I would say the biggest flop about the HP microservers are the CPUs.