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I have the following hardware:

  • Fujitsu BX600 S3 Chassis
  • 10 x BX620 S4 Blade Servers
  • QNAP TS-EC1279U-RP
  • APC Symmetra RM 6kVA 6000VA SYH2K6RMI
  • HP PROCURVE 2510G (J9280A)

What I would like to do:

  • Use the above for VMWARE
  • Partial rendering Video Farm
  • Developing software
  • Lots of testing and practicing

My questions:

  • The TS-EC1279U-RP has 4 x 1GBIT connection which can be trucked all together. I can install a 10GBIT network card and I would like to connect this to the BX600 for maximum throughput. The Gbic part number is FTLF8524P2BNV. I have 24 of these, please have a look at [Click Here][1] for the BX600 Specs, what I have! Everything is listed here. What is the best way to connect the QNAP TS-EC1279U-RP to the BX600. (I have been suggested (2 GBIT ports for iSCSI and the other 2 for normal traffic, seperate the traffice the with switch).

  • With the TS-EC1279U-RP. What is the best recommended RAID level that I should use? I have 12 x 3TB HDD's. (I have been suggested RAID 5, but I am not sure about that! I think at least RAID 6)

Please ask me for any information that I might have missed.

Thank you

1 Answer 1

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2 GBIT ports for iSCSI and the other 2 for normal traffic, seperate the traffice the with switch

That...do that, that makes sense - the BX600 is just a layer 2 switch, no layer 3 so I'd be tempted to create three vswitches, each with two active 1Gbps uplinks, one each for management interface, iscsi and VM traffic. This'll keep vMotion IP traffic 'in-chassis', give you a decent spot of performance (for iSCSI at 1Gbps to 7.2k disks anyway) and separate your VM traffic trunks.

Oh and consider/benchmark using NFS instead of iSCSI, not saying it's better but that box can do both, why not try both options.

Regarding your array don't EVER touch R5, it's dangerous and suicidal with large disks, I'd strongly advise you use RAID 10 but if you absolutely have to then R6 is SO much better than R5 but you're still going to be bottlenecked by those 7.2k disks anyway so it's kind of moot.

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  • Thank you, so you do not think the the use of the 10GBIT is worth it. For example, getting a 10GBIT link from the QNAP to the BX600. And then I would only have 2 x 1GBIT links left in the QNAP (you lose two if you have a 10GBIT card) The 2 GBIT for all the other stuff? Thanks
    – Arthor
    Jul 20, 2012 at 19:29
  • The BX600 isn't 10Gb capable is it? not unless you've linked to the wrong parts above anyway - if you can then yes, 10Gb is better than LACP/etherchanneled multi-1Gbps links so it makes things faster/simpler etc. but is obviously much more spendy - either way is good.
    – Chopper3
    Jul 20, 2012 at 19:31

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