[Solved] Installation virtually and storage on nas server

[Pepe]

Hello guys, i have a couple of question and i really need some help.
What i want to do is:
- Do the installation of 2 virtual/physic machines on centos 7.3 x64 with HA.
- We dont have so much space for our storage on the server for VM so we want to put storage on a NAS server.

That said, my questions are:
- Can i put all the storage on that NAS server without problems? I read zimbra doesnt have a good realationship with NAS servers. The mail servers are for around 250+ accounts at rate of 7 msj/min.
- How can i redirect mails to NAS storage? Using NFS file system?

As always, thank you.
Have a good day.

[L. Mark Stone]

NFS is OK for backups, but not for anything production.

If your NAS appliance supports S3 protocols and you are using 8.8.x Network Edition, the NG Storage Module supports HSM volumes on S3 buckets. To be fair, I have not tried this on anything but actual Amazon S3, but it could be worth exploring.

Hope that helps,
Mark

[Pepe]

Hello Mark:
Not sure about what protocols use, so im going to ask my boss about it. Just the network edition?
Thank you!

[L. Mark Stone]

Yes, just the Network Edition for the NG Storage capability.

[Pepe]

I understand, i readed is not a good idea using NAS for storage coz is slow or it has performance problems.
Anyway, thank you for your response.
Where can i find more info about this issue? I have to report this in order to discart NAS use with open source.
Have a good day.

[L. Mark Stone]

I understand, i readed is not a good idea using NAS for storage coz is slow or it has performance problems.
Anyway, thank you for your response.
Where can i find more info about this issue? I have to report this in order to discart NAS use with open source.
Have a good day.

Network protocol-based storage will generally have the network link as the throughput bottleneck. Unless you are running, say, 10Gbps storage networks.

But putting an HSM partition on an S3-capable NAS storage system should be OK (Network Edition only) from a performance standpoint since older mailblobs are rarely accessed by end users (that's why HSM was created, to help lower storage costs). Putting an HSM partition on a 5,400rpm SATA array I expect would be in many cases slower than using an S3-capable appliance on a 10Gbps storage network. I wouldn't run the appliance on anything less than a 1Gbps network, and I'd have a physically separate network for storage than for data, but if you already have such an appliance, it could be a good way to reduce costs.

Network Edition, when using actual Amazon S3 for HSM storage, enables you to use IA S3 (Infrequent Access S3), which is much lower cost than regular S3.

At some point, if you have really big mailstores, the ability to leverage S3 will go a long way to cover your NE licensing costs, as well as save you from having to spend Capital Expense on new, expanded or higher-performance in-house storage.

Hope that helps,
Mark

[Pepe]

Oh, then its a very impotant thing if we have fiber between servers (zimbra core) and storage (NAS in this case). Also if its up than 5400rpm on disk. That is a really valid point.
Thank you.
Last question: if i have a server destined for storage (NAS) with disk up to 10000rpm its a good idea storage there all mailbox storage? We usually use about 250+ accounts with a rate of 7-10 messages for minute.

[L. Mark Stone]

No NAS for /opt/zimbra/store. Too I/O intensive for network storage IMHO (unless it’s 10Gbps iSCSI).

All the best,
Mark

[Pepe]

I was thinking the same, i must find another solution.
Thanks for you support sr, I appreciate it.
PS: I think the question in fact was solved, i changed on the title. Thank you!