What is Best Practice.... topics keep springing up over and over and over
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So within the past 20 minutes (give or take) I have seen at least TWO topics that have been "We're rebuilding, what is the best practice to configure RAID in my new build, 4 drives, 10K 4TB drives blah blah blah (drive specifics not required)"
Is Best Practice so difficult to understand, is it really not common knowledge at this point in time?
Don't split arrays, OBR5/OBR10 dependent on the disks used, Hypervisors to SD/USB.
Am I being grumpy, or is it really that difficult to understand.
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And don't get me wrong, there are obviously cases that can be made where you don't follow best practice, but if these IT professionals are designing systems, and spending this kind of money, you'd hope that they would have some clue as to how to configure the hardware once it is in their possession.
I even understand asking to confirm what they've already "designed" but in these two post alone this wasn't a request for confirmation, but a request for someone to design the system for them.
To tell them how to do their job.
Is it just me or what the heck?
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Those are rules of thumb, not best practices. A best practice should basically never have an exception. And it should be very, very general. And it really should not change over time. Maybe over half a century, but not year to year or decade to decade. Rules of thumb are "things to do right now unless you have a very specific situation in which you are an exception." These things are good rules of thumb, but not best practices. BPs are very important to know, but will never answer most things for you.
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@DustinB3403 said in What is Best Practice.... topics keep springing up over and over and over:
And don't get me wrong, there are obviously cases that can be made where you don't follow best practice, but if these IT professionals are designing systems, and spending this kind of money, you'd hope that they would have some clue as to how to configure the hardware once it is in their possession.
Ah so....
Rule of Thumb: Don't split arrays.
Best Practice: Never buy equipment without knowing the configuration first so that you order the correct parts.
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I was only using the term "Best Practice" as it was described in the post / subject of the post.
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I'd say they already know what array type they are using because of the drives they purchased. They are so related it's ridiculous.
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@Dashrender said in What is Best Practice.... topics keep springing up over and over and over:
I'd say they already know what array type they are using because of the drives they purchased. They are so related it's ridiculous.
You WOULD say that, except we have to have these conversations with SW posters all of the time where I say "What do you mean you didn't make the choice before you bought the drives, how did you know what to buy" and they just go "um... I don't know."
They are literarally just buying stuff without any forethought. This is actually what we are dealing with.
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I get being a ridiculous buyer, it's understandable. Management said to buy a server, so a server showed up.
But put the query out there first to help define the shopping list before you make an investment of capitol. Time is something we spend constantly (not like we can pause aging) so what's even 1 day for research?
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I don't think it's really difficult to understand... I think people don't like the idea of doing any kind of leg work and seeing other threads.
Maybe it goes even further and they (the poster) are thinking "well that's not MY environment... here's my environement:" which gets replied to with a thread describing a nearly identical setup to their own.
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When you say don't split arrays, do you mean don't split them on the box, like one array for the OS and one for the storage data? or...?
I am guessing that's what you mean but maybe I'm missing something here.
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Correct, if you had 6 drives, you wouldn't create a RAID1 of two of the drives and then a RAID10 of the remaining 4. (horrible example but the concept works)
You'd just make an OBR10. When you build any VM's you're creating dedicated vDisk for them and the entire set is protected by OBR10.
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@BBigford said in What is Best Practice.... topics keep springing up over and over and over:
Maybe it goes even further and they (the poster) are thinking "well that's not MY environment... here's my environement:" which gets replied to with a thread describing a nearly identical setup to their own.
Such a common issue that I wrote about it...
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@BBigford said in What is Best Practice.... topics keep springing up over and over and over:
When you say don't split arrays, do you mean don't split them on the box, like one array for the OS and one for the storage data? or...?
I am guessing that's what you mean but maybe I'm missing something here.
Correct.
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2012/12/the-history-of-array-splitting/
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@scottalanmiller said in What is Best Practice.... topics keep springing up over and over and over:
@BBigford said in What is Best Practice.... topics keep springing up over and over and over:
Maybe it goes even further and they (the poster) are thinking "well that's not MY environment... here's my environement:" which gets replied to with a thread describing a nearly identical setup to their own.
Such a common issue that I wrote about it...
Hah! That is awesome!
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@DustinB3403 said in What is Best Practice.... topics keep springing up over and over and over:
Correct, if you had 6 drives, you wouldn't create a RAID1 of two of the drives and then a RAID10 of the remaining 4. (horrible example but the concept works)
You'd just make an OBR10. When you build any VM's you're creating dedicated vDisk for them and the entire set is protected by OBR10.
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2012/11/one-big-raid-10-a-new-standard-in-server-storage/
