Msa 2062 Raid Recommendation for vmware

[SoporteAsnet]

I am going to buy a new msa 2062.
I was thinking to mount 2 msa-dp+ raids. One with 900 gb ssd drives and one with 2.4 Tb sas.
My intention was to mount 1 pool with ssd disks for virtual application and database servers and another with sas disks for Ad and fileservers.

But after watching this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wOn1LUv-bk I have doubts if it is better to mount a raid 6 of ssd with 1.8 disks and mount the msa-dp+ raid with a read cache disk for the Ad and fileserver servers.

I have tried to do this configuration in hpe msa ninja, but I don't know if I am doing it correctly.

I would appreciate any advice.

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System recommended content:

1. HPE MSA 2062 Storage Array - Overview

2. HPE MSA 1060/2060/2062 Storage Arrays Best Practices

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[JonPaul]

@SoporteAsnet 
MSA 2062 include 1.92TB SSDs so you will want to think about what to do with those.
There are a number of reasons to use MSA-DP+ RAID level rather than the standard RAID levels.  
1. Incremental capacity increases (add 1 drive at a time)
2. Always in Power of 2 configuration -  avoids possible degraded performance in Sequential Write workload
3. Built-in spare capacity - all drives working at all times
There's 1 major reason not to use MSA-DP+,  minimum drive requirement of 12 drives.
So for your SSD RAID level, do you think you will ever want to increase the capacity?  If so will you double capacity (add another RAID set) or incremental increase (Add 1 drive).
If you use MSA-DP+ for the SSD performance disk-group and the MSA-DP+ for the 2.4TB drives then you will not have any open slots for capacity increase so to increase capacity you will need another enclosure.
The performance of the SSD disk-group will be limited by the controller so larger SSDs usually give a better cost option. ex instead of 12x 960GB MSA-DP+ use 6x 1.92TB RAID6 (Power of 2) to have roughly the same usable capacity, note there is no spare capacity with the 6x 1.92TB in RAID 6.  Using the larger SSDs will allow for future increase in the Spinning media MSA-DP+ but you would probably still be limited on the SSD Pool due to having to increase by a full RAID 6 set.  So it goes back to "Do you think you will need to expand in the future?"

With your Ad and FileServers you could start with the MSA-DP+ with 2.4TB drives and check performance. Then add the READ-CACHE and check performance and lastly remove the RC and add a performance tier and check performance. The nice thing about Virtual Storage is the adaptability as shown in the video of adding a removing disk-groups. note as stated DRAIN of actual data can take some time.
The video from Ingram Micro does go through and depict well the tiering engine and performance gains by adding RC vs Performance Tier.
A couple of documents which can add some detail:
MSA Best Practices: https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a00105260enw
MSA Virtual Storage Technical reference: https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a00103247enw

[SoporteAsnet]

Hi Jon.

Thank you very much for your reply.
I had doubts, because many people recommend the dp+ raid.
I don't think we will have to expand in the future I'm aware that if this happens we will have to purchase another msa.
I think I will take the msa without the ssd disks (I'm sure the performance will be good with any ssd raid). I will do performance tests with the sas dp+ both with the read cache and without it. And after the tests I will order the ssd disks.
You have helped me a lot.

[JonPaul]

@SoporteAsnet 
Glad to have helped.  One thing to bear in mind, the MSA 2062 includes 2x 1.92TB AND the ADS license.  The MSA 2060 does not include either the drives or the license.  If you think you will put an SSD capacity disk-group (RAID 1,5,6,10, DP+) and the HDD capacity disk-group (10k drives) then the 2062 may be a better cost effective option, as long as you are going to use 1.92TB SSDs.  The ADS license list price is ~$1300 USD  the price difference between 2060 and 2062 can be as little as $2500 USD.  Check with your sales team