Hello, I''m planning to use VMware Server on Ubuntu to host multiple VMs, one of which will be a Solaris instance for the purposes of ZFS I would give the ZFS VM two physical disks for my zpool, e.g. /dev/sda and /dev/sdb, in addition to the VMware virtual disk for the Solaris OS Now I know that Solaris/ZFS likes to have total control over the disks to ensure writes are flushed as and when it is ready for them to happen, so I wonder if anybody comment on what implications using the disks in this way (i.e. through Linux and then VMware) has on the control Solaris has over these disks? By using a VM will I be missing out in terms of reliability? If so, can anybody suggest any improvements I could make while still allowing Solaris/ZFS to run in a VM? Many thanks, Lewis
Lewis Thompson wrote:> Hello, > > I''m planning to use VMware Server on Ubuntu to host multiple VMs, one > of which will be a Solaris instance for the purposes of ZFS > I would give the ZFS VM two physical disks for my zpool, e.g. /dev/sda > and /dev/sdb, in addition to the VMware virtual disk for the Solaris > OS > > Now I know that Solaris/ZFS likes to have total control over the disks > to ensure writes are flushed as and when it is ready for them to > happen, so I wonder if anybody comment on what implications using the > disks in this way (i.e. through Linux and then VMware) has on the > control Solaris has over these disks? By using a VM will I be missing > out in terms of reliability? If so, can anybody suggest any > improvements I could make while still allowing Solaris/ZFS to run in a > VM?I''m not sure what the perf aspects would be but it depends on what the VMware software passes through. Does it ignore cache sync commands in its i/o stack? Got me. You won''t be missing out on reliability but you will be introducing more layers in the stack where something could go wrong.