Multiple Windows Server 2016 VMs on TS-1277-64GBGB

[RangerZ]

We are looking to replace a trio of older HP Proliant DL360 blade servers hosting 4 Windows 2008 R2 servers, both bare metal and as VMs. We have an Applications Server for hosting our business apps accessed via Remote Desktop (financial apps, Lacerte and QuickBooks mostly), a data server, and both primary and backup domain controllers.

We are a small office with about 10 users and one of the big issues is the noise the blade servers generate, 33-55db each (based on specs) depending on the box. We do not have any place to allocate as a server room. This box specs in at about 23 DB.

The App Server OS uses about 150 GB of space, and the others under 100 GB. We have about 500 GB of data growing at about 40 GB/yr.

We have a proposal from a vendor to use a TS-1277 with 64GB of ram to host all of the above on new Windows 2016 server VMs. We are still discussing details, but with the relatively low data volumes I am hoping to use Samsung EVO 960 SSDs as drives, both for speed and to minimize noise.

I do not see many Windows 2016 Server VM posts here and looking for a sanity check on the feasibility of using this hardware as well as any suggestions for configuration. I expect to back up the data and copies of the VMs to a second lower end device.

Any words of wisdom are appreciated.

[Trexx]

A few things to look at...

1) What are the cpu & memory usage of the existing blades? What generation blade is? We can then take that Information to look up the cpu passmarks for each blade to try and get overall load.

2) The virtualization capability of VS is not on the same level as a Hyper-v or VMware.

3) I would go with the rack mount version with the redundant power supply if for business usage. This also upgrades you to the Ryzen 2x00 CPUs vs 1x00 series in the desktop model.

4) While you can go with multiple SATA ssd’s, you will still want to raid them and have backups.

That is some starting things we can look at.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[RangerZ]

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

1 - The CPUs are Xeon 5160@3Ghz in all the machines. The dataserver has 16GB Ram and the App server 32GB ram. I just backed up about a GB of (delta) data for today. I do not have any quantitative performance data, been asking, not getting. I know if I stare at Windows Task manager I see virtually nothing on the DB server and little more on the apps server. They are doing relatively light weight math when users hit enter as opposed to CAD, gaming or other process intensive apps. If I know what parms are important I could set up something in process monitor.

2 - Unclear what you mean by VS capabilities not being on the same level as VMWare or Hyper-V. Performance or general functionality of the tool?

3 - I could use some help with the specific model you are positioning. The rackmount is a major part of the issue, and puts us into the 35-45 DB range (depending on model). Granted 1 unit is quieter than the 3 I have. We have a cabinet, with venting that the TS-1277 would fit in, which is one of the reasons it's so attractive. I am very uncomfortable with the single PS and actually thinking of keeping a spare on site. None of the support options are financially attractive for a small company, and the turn around time for repair basically means I need to get a second box if it breaks (and not a PS). Seems I can get one next day, so if I wait I may get newer tech. Frankly, if I am going to get a RM I don't see a compelling reason to go this route. I'm not really happy about this coming down to acoustics, but if you were in the office you would understand.

4 - My thoughts on the drives are to build 2 arrays of (4) 1TB SSDs. 1 array would have all the VM OSs, and the other array the data (Drive D for the Data server). Not clear if that's sufficient for the host functions. I was expecting to back up to a second SOHO box like a TS-231 with 2 4TB mechanical drives over VPN off site as well as hang a 4TB USB drive off the back of the in house box. We have under a TB of data and it appears that changes are a less than a few GB per day. Currently we have 2 DB servers. The primary is continually updating the backup via robocpy -yeah, not quite dead yet, and I run an off site backup to a USB drive in case the building burns. The proposal is to fill all the slots with drives, but he has not explained why as yet.

I really don't want to be bleeding edge and pose significant business risk.

Thanks for your help

[Trexx]

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

1 - The CPUs are Xeon 5160@3Ghz in all the machines. The dataserver has 16GB Ram and the App server 32GB ram. I just backed up about a GB of (delta) data for today. I do not have any quantitative performance data, been asking, not getting. I know if I stare at Windows Task manager I see virtually nothing on the DB server and little more on the apps server. They are doing relatively light weight math when users hit enter as opposed to CAD, gaming or other process intensive apps. If I know what parms are important I could set up something in process monitor.

2 - Unclear what you mean by VS capabilities not being on the same level as VMWare or Hyper-V. Performance or general functionality of the tool?

3 - I could use some help with the specific model you are positioning. The rackmount is a major part of the issue, and puts us into the 35-45 DB range (depending on model). Granted 1 unit is quieter than the 3 I have. We have a cabinet, with venting that the TS-1277 would fit in, which is one of the reasons it's so attractive. I am very uncomfortable with the single PS and actually thinking of keeping a spare on site. None of the support options are financially attractive for a small company, and the turn around time for repair basically means I need to get a second box if it breaks (and not a PS). Seems I can get one next day, so if I wait I may get newer tech. Frankly, if I am going to get a RM I don't see a compelling reason to go this route. I'm not really happy about this coming down to acoustics, but if you were in the office you would understand.

4 - My thoughts on the drives are to build 2 arrays of (4) 1TB SSDs. 1 array would have all the VM OSs, and the other array the data (Drive D for the Data server). Not clear if that's sufficient for the host functions. I was expecting to back up to a second SOHO box like a TS-231 with 2 4TB mechanical drives over VPN off site as well as hang a 4TB USB drive off the back of the in house box. We have under a TB of data and it appears that changes are a less than a few GB per day. Currently we have 2 DB servers. The primary is continually updating the backup via robocpy -yeah, not quite dead yet, and I run an off site backup to a USB drive in case the building burns. The proposal is to fill all the slots with drives, but he has not explained why as yet.

I really don't want to be bleeding edge and pose significant business risk.

Thanks for your help

1) If you aren't sure how do perfmon analysis, look at this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CagTiRYmj58. But just looking at passmarks wise, your Xeon processors have a passmark just under 2k, vs. 15k for the Ryzen 7 2700 in the Rack mount 1277 below. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/In ... 1187vs3240

2) Both... Qnap's VS would be considered a Type-2 Hypervisor, vs. Hyper-V/VMware ESX are Type 1. See here for a high level overview of the differences. https://searchservervirtualization.tech ... ypervisors

While the VS platform is decent, it is not comparable to either of the others. See here for a good overview of VS. https://live.qnap.com/en/video/show/4494

3) Here is the rackmount version of the 1277. https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/ts-1 ... s/hardware . As for keeping a 2nd power supply on hand, that doesn't do any good in the case of a hard crash and potentially corrupted data. It gets you back up and running quicker, but doesn't prevent the outage in the 1st place.

4) I would create a 2 drive Raid-1 volume for the QTS "OS" & Apps (500GB+ SSD's) for fastest boot. Create a 6+ Drive (RAID-6) volume for your VM's, Data, etc. I wouldn't create a VM at all for just file server functionality as the NAS can do that itself. You probably will want a VM for AD functionality, etc. VM potentially eliminates some of the need for the 2nd DB server. Just create multiple VM HDD's for the various DB drives separate of the VM C: drive.