create iSCSI traget for BackupExec on QNAP NAS

[anonimous]

hi

I'd like to create 55TB iSCSI target on Qnap TS-EC1279U-RP for BackupExec 2010 sp3 and save Windows server over 1GB LAN.
All 4 QNAP ports are already configured as IEEE 802.3ad Trunking and LACP Trunking setuped on 4 ports from HP switch ProCurve, to get best transfer rate.
Should I create "iSCSI Target with a mapped LUN" or "iSCSI Target only"?
If I should create "Target with a mapped LUN" which option should be used:
"Block-based"
"Thin Provisioning"
"File-based"
"Instant Allocation"

[ZeRoC00L]

This are questions you better ask in support forums of QNAP.
 

But to help you a bit, I would suggest to select "Target with a mapped LUN", and use Block-Based & Instand Allocation.

According to the manual block based is faster, and with thin provisioning you can overcommit your storage.

[CraigV]

...I don't think you want to use thin provisioning for backups. It's going to give you a false sense of being able to scale more than you should. In no time you're going to hit the limit for what you can scale too and then be forced to buy additional disks and/or enclosures.

55TB of disk space is a lot of disk space for backups, especially if you're not backing up that much. ESPECIALLY if you're using something like dedupe, you should be able to retain a lot of backups on disk.

Also just make sure that the switch ports and the server's NICs are hard-coded to 1GB FULL and not set to auto-negotiate.

Thanks!

[anonimous]

>>>Also just make sure that the switch ports and the server's NICs are hard-coded to 1GB FULL and not set to auto-negotiate.<<<

On the BE server is already 2GB network card teaming configured.

Do you think, I should hard-code to 1GB FULL these 2 interfaces on the HP ProCurve switch?

[CraigV]

Hard-coding ports and NICs means these aren't going to try auto-negotiate the best and fastest possible speeds. Do this and see if it makes any difference.

What sort of teaming have you set up?

Thanks!

[anonimous]

>>>What sort of teaming have you set up?<<<

It's HP network teaming:

[CraigV]

...click on HP Network Teaming #1 and then the Properties tab and post a screenshot of that.

THanks!

[Quindor2]

Hmm, I would suggest going back to the drawing board here.

Teaming/802.3ad and iSCSI are a big no-no in the configuration you are attempting.

Both the storage and server should have several NIC's which then use iSCSI round-robin load-balancing to get more bandwith to eachother. Using any form of MAC based load-balancing as you are doing right now will never result in more bandwith then 1Gbps. There are lots of guides about this on the internet, I would recommend reading up on it!

Including all the things related such as 1000 FDUP (full-duplex) hard set, flow control, several IP ranges, correct switch setup, etc.

IEEE 802.3ad Trunking and LACP Trunking is what you want when using CIFS/SMB/Windows file sharing, not iSCSI.

I understand you are only trying to make backups to a disk volume, but still it's important.

Further then that, on the Backup Exec side if you are going to use deduplication, one large volume is fine. If you are going to use backup-to-disk I would recommend several smaller volumes (split the storage in 3 volumes?) and then write with no more then 2 streams per volume. This was you will get 6 parralel streams that can do your backups and not horribly bog your setup down with fragmentation or other issues.

[anonimous]

>>>..click on HP Network Teaming #1 and then the Properties tab and post a screenshot of that.

THanks!<<<

[anonimous]

Thx, but I have a question.

At the moment SAN (QNAP) is connected from WIN2008 R2 via iSCSI and on this WINDOWS Server I have nic teaming configured:

802.3ad Dynamic with Fault Tolerance

On those ports connected to the HP Switch I have Trunking with LACP configured.

It seems Microsoft does not support NIC teaming with their iSCSI initiator driver:

NIC Teaming

>>>Microsoft does not support the use of NIC teaming on iSCSI interfaces.  For iSCSI SAN interfaces, Microsoft recommends that customers use dual or quad ported NICs, or multiple single-port NICs and allow Microsoft Windows components to handle fail-over and redundancy to ensure consistent visibility into the data path. Fail-over and load balancing of multiple paths to an iSCSI target from within the same server is supported through MS MPIO and Multiple Connections per session (fail over and load balancing using multiple adapters in the same server.  Please see details on configuring MS MPIO and MCS later in this guide.  Microsoft Cluster Server can also be used for fail over and load balancing of shared storage resources between servers (fail over and load balancing between servers).  NIC teaming can still be used on LAN interfaces only that are not used to connect to an iSCSI SAN.<<<

That means, I cannot use nic teaming on my WIN2008 Server because of iSCSI and I should install Microsoft Multipath I/O (MPIO) instead?

[Quindor2]

Yes, this is exactly what I tried to explain in my post. Please lookup how iSCSI should be configured (Windows or otherwise), 802.3ad/LACP is hardly ever usable in a iSCSI situation. Mostly the awnser is a no in combining it.

Round-Robin Load-Balacing should be used using a multipath tool (such as MPIO). Try and find some articles about iSCSI and how you are suposed to set it up, it will help you in your situation!