[SOLVED] VM running off of single, dedicated disk...


rmp5s

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I have a W10 VM that I use (try to use, anyway...) to render videos in Adobe.  It's just on the array and the disk speeds are SO...INCREDIBLY...SLOW...that it takes an unbelievably long time to render.  I stopped a render yesterday after over 2 hours because it was BARELY making progress...my flaccid dual core laptop did the entire render in that same amount of time.  At the rate the server was going, it would seriously have taken 10 hours?...maybe 12?  I don't even know.  It's INCREDIBLY slow and, when I look at resource manager, I notice the disk access is pegged.  Disk speeds seem to be the culprit. 

 

So...I have a spare Samsung 860 Evo laying around.  This got me thinking, how could I install it and dedicate it to the VM?  What I'm wondering is, is it possible to assign that disk ONLY to that VM?  Maybe using "unassigned devices"?  Also, would it be possible to move the VM onto the SSD after I install it or will I have to create a new VM?  No big deal if I have to reroll a new VM.

 

Thank you!!

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Just now, John_M said:

What do you mean by that? Do you mean that the VM's vdisk is on the array? If not, where is it? Or do you mean that the source and destination files for the render are on the array?

Yes, the vdisk and the source files are on the array.  I'd like to dedicate an SSD to the VM so the VM can run off of it and I could put the source files on there for rendering.  I'm hoping that would make the thing render as fast as it should.

Maybe I could just install the SSD and put the source files on it...maybe that would help.  How would I "attach" that disk to the VM?  

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1 minute ago, rmp5s said:

Yes, the vdisk and the source files are on the array.

No wonder the performance is atrocious. Install your SSD in your server and when your start it up allocate it as the cache disk. Then you can change the system and domains shares to cache:prefer (that's the default, anyway) and run the mover (make sure the VM service is temporarily disabled first).

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17 minutes ago, John_M said:

No wonder the performance is atrocious. Install your SSD in your server and when your start it up allocate it as the cache disk. Then you can change the system and domains shares to cache:prefer (that's the default, anyway) and run the mover (make sure the VM service is temporarily disabled first).

I have an NVMe SSD in the server that was intended to be the cache drive but I'm having trouble getting the BIOS to recognize it as it's installed via PCIe. 

 

The extra SSD I have is SATA.  Would I be able to assign it to the VM somehow?

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There are three components to running your rendering VM (the system files, the VM boot disk and the data files) and at the moment you are running them all from the array. If you set your SSD as a cache you can move all three of those components onto it. The system files are in the system share, the VM boot disk is in the domains share. Once you've done that you can choose where you locate the input/output files for your renders. For example, there might be enough space on the VM's vdisk C : drive, or you might want to add a D : drive to accommodate them. (I had to put a space before the colons otherwise a stupid smiley is substituted - 😄 😧 )

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I have a NVME SSD and it for the last year and worked great, till about 3 months ago, on a power off it does not come up on most boots under unassigned devices.  I have an AMD processor and an ASRock AB350 Pro4. Is anyone else having issues with NVME disks not being found?

 

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19 minutes ago, rlust said:

I have a NVME SSD and it for the last year and worked great, till about 3 months ago, on a power off it does not come up on most boots under unassigned devices.  I have an AMD processor and an ASRock AB350 Pro4. Is anyone else having issues with NVME disks not being found?

This has nothing to do with this thread so start your own topic and include your diagnostics zip file (Tools -> Diagnostics).

 

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5 hours ago, John_M said:

There are three components to running your rendering VM (the system files, the VM boot disk and the data files) and at the moment you are running them all from the array. If you set your SSD as a cache you can move all three of those components onto it. The system files are in the system share, the VM boot disk is in the domains share. Once you've done that you can choose where you locate the input/output files for your renders. For example, there might be enough space on the VM's vdisk C : drive, or you might want to add a D : drive to accommodate them. (I had to put a space before the colons otherwise a stupid smiley is substituted - 😄 😧 )

Got ya.  I'll give it a shot this weekend.  Thanks!

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  • 2 months later...
On 10/31/2019 at 3:05 PM, John_M said:

There are three components to running your rendering VM (the system files, the VM boot disk and the data files) and at the moment you are running them all from the array. If you set your SSD as a cache you can move all three of those components onto it. The system files are in the system share, the VM boot disk is in the domains share. Once you've done that you can choose where you locate the input/output files for your renders. For example, there might be enough space on the VM's vdisk C : drive, or you might want to add a D : drive to accommodate them. (I had to put a space before the colons otherwise a stupid smiley is substituted - 😄 😧 )

What exactly is the process for moving the files onto the cache?  Just let the mover do it?

And, out of curiosity, is there a way to assign the SSD directly to a VM?  Thought there was a way to do it using "unassigned devices" but I've never done it before.

On 10/31/2019 at 10:36 AM, John_M said:

No wonder the performance is atrocious. Install your SSD in your server and when your start it up allocate it as the cache disk. Then you can change the system and domains shares to cache:prefer (that's the default, anyway) and run the mover (make sure the VM service is temporarily disabled first).

In the meantime, this is what I did.  Don't know if it'll move stuff automatically or if I have to do something else, but for now, we'll give this a shot.

 

I'd still really like to assign the SSD directly to a VM, though.

 

What's going to happen when the cache drive is 500GB but I have a VM with a 1TB vdisk?

 

Thanks, man.

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8 hours ago, rmp5s said:

What's going to happen when the cache drive is 500GB but I have a VM with a 1TB vdisk?

The VM is going to stop working when the vdisk has used all the available space.     You should never set up a vdisk that is larger than the physical disk holding it unless you want to have problems later.

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1 hour ago, itimpi said:

The V

m is going to stop working when the vdisk has used all the available space.     You should never set up a vdisk that is larger than the physical disk holding it unless you want to have problems later.

Ok.  So.  Can't do the cache disk thing then.  I have a VM for my security cameras that has a 1TB vdisk.  It's fine as is.

 

How can I assign the SSD to a VM?  Even if I have to make a new VM...I don't care.  I know it's possible to assign GPUs to VMs...can't you do something similar with a disk?

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I have not messed with this, so take it with a grain of salt, but one option would be to split up your shares so that the normal file-shares only use spinning disks and your SSD's only encompass the VM shares.

billede.png.037683d4eea40cb81d597b5cb2850e80.png

 

It's a bit more manual, but should allow you to make sure where the VM data is located. Again I say should because I don't think this would be considered best practice.

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13 hours ago, rmp5s said:

What exactly is the process for moving the files onto the cache?  Just let the mover do it?

To move shares (such as 'system' and 'domain') from the array to the cache you can use the mover as I described here:

 

13 hours ago, rmp5s said:

And, out of curiosity, is there a way to assign the SSD directly to a VM?

Yes, it's described in this thread:

 

13 hours ago, rmp5s said:

What's going to happen when the cache drive is 500GB but I have a VM with a 1TB vdisk?

That's a problem, as itimpi replied. Virtual disks are allocated sparsely, so a 1 TB vdisk will initially occupy only a small amount of physical space, and grow as files are written to it. So it might actually fit on a 500 GB physical disk at the moment. The problems will happen when it outgrows the space available to it.

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1 hour ago, John_M said:

If you want to move the shares from the array to the cache you need to set them to "Prefer", not "Yes". If you set them to "Yes" they will be moved from the cache to the array.

Right.  I need to get the stuff off the cache now because it filled the cache up, which actually seems to have crashed the server.  It rebooted last night and this thing NEVER reboots.

Once the cache drive is cleared off, I'm going to try assigning it to a VM using "Unassigned Devices".

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On 1/19/2020 at 1:21 AM, John_M said:

Did you read the whole thread? This post 

describes the "by ID" method that SpaceInvaderOne used in his video at timecode 7:10.

I did.

I dd'd my Adobe render VM's vdisk onto the SSD and put the disk location in the VM using the "by-id" method and, when I click "update" to save the configuration, it just says "updating..." indefinitely.

 

Something isn't right...

 

I'm getting the disk ID from "Unassigned Devices":

 

image.thumb.png.30fd2b23892011009489cd657f0330b1.png

 

...and pasting it into the vdisk location as (largely) pictured:

 

image.thumb.png.06f43dce19059a7f834a8237fb13c1e2.png

 

I tried it with putting in various vDisk sizes (as this isn't in SpaceInvader's video) as well as chaing Bus type.  Nothin doin.

 

Anyone see anything I'm doing wrong?  This is the PERFECT solution for what I'm trying to do!!...if I can just get it to work...lol

 

Thanks, everyone!

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1 hour ago, rmp5s said:

I did.

I dd'd my Adobe render VM's vdisk onto the SSD and put the disk location in the VM using the "by-id" method and, when I click "update" to save the configuration, it just says "updating..." indefinitely.

 

Something isn't right...

 

I'm getting the disk ID from "Unassigned Devices":

 

image.thumb.png.30fd2b23892011009489cd657f0330b1.png

 

...and pasting it into the vdisk location as (largely) pictured:

 

image.thumb.png.06f43dce19059a7f834a8237fb13c1e2.png

 

I tried it with putting in various vDisk sizes (as this isn't in SpaceInvader's video) as well as chaing Bus type.  Nothin doin.

 

Anyone see anything I'm doing wrong?  This is the PERFECT solution for what I'm trying to do!!...if I can just get it to work...lol

 

Thanks, everyone!

Primary vDisk Bus: Sata

Edited by jpowell8672
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  • rmp5s changed the title to [SOLVED] VM running off of single, dedicated disk...

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