Windows Server 2019 VM

[scorpio8810]

Hi all,

 

I'm planning to move my windows server at my workplace to a virtual machine.

 

I was experiencing with ubuntu 18.04 LTS and kvm/qemu but find the performance very low.

 

What would be the best host OS for a windows server VM.

 

Here are the specs of the machine

 

MB: Asus Prime Z390-A

CPU: Intel i7-9700K

RAM: 64GB (4 X 16GB) DDR4 Vengeance LPX 2666 MHz

Boot Disk: 1TB Barracuda SATAIII SSD

Storage drives: 2 X 6TB (RAID 1) Seagate EXOS SATAIII HDD on a PCIe RAID card from Vantec (UGT-ST644R) (I know, not the best at all, but real RAID card bring the cost up A LOT)

 

What would be your recommendations on host OS, configuration tips and things to be aware of.

 

Thanks!!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Do you want to run any other oses? Basically any hypervisor can do this.

 

What do you mean by bad performance, how did you test it?

 

Id probably run hyper-v server or proxmox here. Then setup software raid 1(don't use that raid card, just use the onboard sata and a software raid setup)

[CWALD]

There is a free version of VMWare but it only does so much otherwise Hyper-V is Microsoft's solution

[Viper9]

If you only want to run Windows Server 2019 on this machine you don't need an hypervisor, but if you want to run multiple VM I suggest VMware ESXi. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Viper9 said:

If you only want to run Windows Server 2019 on this machine you don't need an hypervisor, but if you want to run multiple VM I suggest VMware ESXi. 

Id probably stay away from esxi here as there isn't great with consumer boards, and won't work well with the raid config op wants. ESXI doesn't like those cheap raid cards, and doesn't have software raid support

[scorpio8810]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do you want to run any other oses? Basically any hypervisor can do this.

 

What do you mean by bad performance, how did you test it?

 

Id probably run hyper-v server or proxmox here. Then setup software raid 1(don't use that raid card, just use the onboard sata and a software raid setup)

by bad performance i talk in terms of networking,

I forgot to mention that I installed a 10Gb NIC and i have a 24 port gigabit switch with two 10Gb (one for the server and the other for the Synology NAS which also have a 10Gb NIC)

But running a LAN speed test on a network share (on the windows server) only give me 12MB writing and 40MB reading. In comparison, I get 90MB write and 40GB read to my Synology NAS.

 

Also, running crystaldisk Benchmark, i get the results in the attached picture. Which seems low to me, but maybe my expectations are way too high.

[Viper9]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id probably stay away from esxi here as there isn't great with consumer boards, and won't work well with the raid config op wants. ESXI doesn't like those cheap raid cards, and doesn't have software raid support

You run ESXi from a USB stick or SD card and it should work fine. Once ESXi is loaded into RAM you're good to go, with a good UPS of course in case of a power lost. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, scorpio8810 said:

I forgot to mention that I installed a 10Gb NIC

what nic? What performance to the synolgy do you get with iperf?

 

1 minute ago, scorpio8810 said:

Also, running crystaldisk Benchmark, i get the results in the attached picture. Which seems low to me, but maybe my expectations are way too high.

well you have disk caching on, so thats why reads are so high

 

Stop using that raid card, and switch to software raid, id use zfs on linux

 

1 minute ago, Viper9 said:

You run ESXi from a USB stick or SD card and it should work fine. Once ESXi is loaded into RAM you're good to go, with a good UPS of course in case of a power lost. 

but it still won't work with the raid card, and support software raid. Booting from a usb stick won't solve the issue.

[scorpio8810]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id probably stay away from esxi here as there isn't great with consumer boards, and won't work well with the raid config op wants. ESXI doesn't like those cheap raid cards, and doesn't have software raid support

I have this raid card because i thought it was a good idea.... if it's not, ill get rid of it no problem!! hehe But I do want a RAID Config. I have a nice backup plan on my synology, which itself is being backed up to three different destinations. The RAID is only for the sake of not having to send everyone home if a drive fails.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, scorpio8810 said:

I have this raid card because i thought it was a good idea.... if it's not, ill get rid of it no problem!! hehe But I do want a RAID Config. I have a nice backup plan on my synology, which itself is being backed up to three different destinations. The RAID is only for the sake of not having to send everyone home if a drive fails.

If your on linux based system like proxmox or ubuntu id use zfs here. Otherwise with something like hyper-v server you can use storage spaces.

 

 

[scorpio8810]

Ok,

 

i will install proxmox on another boot drive and test it out.

 

Is the disk benchmarks looks fine to you? I understand why the sequential read are so high, but what about the other speeds? are they what we should expect from my setup?

[Jarsky]

Personally i'm a fan of VMware ESXi. Theres a free version, VMware have a conversion tool for an easy P2V (Physical to Virtual) conversion of your existing server.

ESXi is fairly simple to use as well. 

 

I second Electronics Wizardy's sentiment. Make sure you actually want to use a hypervisor since its a single VM. 

Whats the advantage of running it under a hypervisor for you?

What considerations do you need to make for hardware with such a setup?

 

 

To get the ball rolling, if you did want to go ESXi:

You would need to check compatibility/support for your 10gbE adapter (unless you're going to passthrough the 10gbit nic to the VM). 

You would also need to get a proper RAID card (e.g a LSI-9260-8i or similar) that is supported by VMware, You need to create your Datastore for your VM OS Disks, and your Data storage (or consider if you want to passthrough physical disks and create a software raid in Windows)

 

If you decide on something like Proxmox, that supports ZFS but you have to do configuration from the CLI. 

This uses KVM/QEMU for the hypervisor though. Not sure why you would have been experiencing performance issues, perhaps to do with the machine version you were running for your VM template? 

[scorpio8810]

On 8/22/2020 at 12:32 AM, Jarsky said:

I second Electronics Wizardy's sentiment. Make sure you actually want to use a hypervisor since its a single VM. 

Whats the advantage of running it under a hypervisor for you?

What considerations do you need to make for hardware with such a setup?

Well, we had a mobo faillure in january. So during the time it took me to get my hands on the hardware needed to rebuild the server. i had to send everyone home (2-3 persons, no like we're a big company). If i had a virtualized server, ubuntu and kvm is installed very quickly and run on almost any hardware. i could have installed it on any computer lying around and have it back up in no time (slow, very poor performance but at least running)

 

On 8/22/2020 at 12:32 AM, Jarsky said:

This uses KVM/QEMU for the hypervisor though. Not sure why you would have been experiencing performance issues, perhaps to do with the machine version you were running for your VM template? 

I think the main performance issue is with the storage, probably coming from a mix of the RAID card, but also of the storage configuration in KVM (a mix of Storage Format - cache mode - IO mode)

 

But i must say that im very new to virtualization, still have a lot to learn.

 

Do you think the disk performance in the pictures above is what i should expect???

 

Thanks for the feedback! unfortunately, i will have to wait to try the different things as it implies a whole server reconfiguration and i'm way back on schedule for my current project. But i will keep you guys posted