Storage Recommendations for FSLogix
The following recommendations provide a baseline estimate for the storage IOPS you will need to run FSLogix for O365 Containers and Outlook search.
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Networking Note: It's
not a good idea to us WIFI with FSLogix, since your computer needs to be connected to the network through the whole logoff process or else FSLogix will not be able to copy your profile to the server.
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You will need high availability to protect the Fileserver where your containers are stored.
You will need about 2 IOPS per user total to use FSLogix with O365 containers with Windows Search Index:
- O365 container requires about 1.5 IOPS per user
- Search index require approximately .5 IOPS per user
An example customer with 5,000 users used the following SOFS design to deliver the throughput needed of 10k IOPS total:
- Servers: 3 file servers located on 3 different hypervisor
hosts
- 8-16 vCPUs, 32-64GB RAM, 4 vNics each
- Storage:
EMC Flash disk array with sufficient IO
- On average, their users created about 1GB of cache per week of Cache stored. The amount of storage will need to be equivalent to
3 months of Exchange cache plus 10% for Search Index, plus growth of another about 1,000 users. Container size is initially capped at 30GB when provisioned, but can be adjusted as needed. If the average user Outlook cache is 5GB then the space needed
at a minimum as specified would be 5x5,000=25,000 + 2,500 or a total of 27,500 GB (minimum).
- Network: Check with your service provider for best practices
for SOFS designs and other HA solutions to provide high availability.
Calculating actual storage IOPS Required for FSLogix:
You can use the following table to calculate your IOPS requirements for FSLogix:
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NUMBER OF USERS X REQUIRED SPACE
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RAW SPACE
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RAW SPACE / SIZE OF HARD DISK
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REQUIRED HARD DISKS
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‘X160X’ IOPS PER HDD X REQUIRED HARD DISKS
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TOTAL IOPS AVAIL
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NUMBER OF USERS X IOPS
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REQUIRED IOPS
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TOTAL IOPS AVAIL / REQURED IOPS
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IOPS PER USER
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IOPS PER USER
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=>1.5 IOPS
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Example: Showing you don't have enough disks. (To
get to 1.5 IOPS per user we would need about 70 Disks.)
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Number of Users
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7000
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Required Space per user in GB
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5
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HDD Size
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1024
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Required HDD's
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34.1796875
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Adjuster
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0
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Total HDD's
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34
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IOPS Per HDD
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150
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Total IOPS Avil
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5126.953125
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IOPS PER USRER AVAIL
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0.732421875
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Example: Showing you have enough disks. (To
get to 1.5 IOPS per user we would need about 70 Disks.)
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Number of Users
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7000
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Required Space per user in GB
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5
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HDD Size
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1024
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Required HDD's
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34.1796875
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Adjuster
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35
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Total HDD's
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70
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IOPS Per HDD
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150
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Total IOPS Avil
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10500
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IOPS PER USRER AVAIL
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1.50
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Calculating Theoretical storage IOPS Required for FSLogix
If you do not have Exchange installed but want to plan for impending storage needs that result from an Exchange deployment, you can use data that has already been collected. This data is in the form of mailbox profiles, which describe general usage patterns
for Exchange mailboxes. The following table lists mailbox profiles that can be used as a guideline for capacity planning of Exchange mailbox servers. These profiles represent mailbox access for the “average user” Outlook (or MAPI-based) client within the organization.
User profiles and corresponding usage patterns
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User Type
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Database Volume IOPS
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Send/Receive per day
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Mailbox Size
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Light
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.5
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20 sent/50 received
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50 MB
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Average
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.75
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30 sent/75 received
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100 MB
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Heavy
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1.0
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40 sent/100 received
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200 MB
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Large
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1.5
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60 sent/150 received
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500 MB
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Each profile represents total I/O to the Jet database and does not include I/O related to transaction log file activity. In order to accurately calculate your disk subsystem load, you must split this database I/O into read and write I/O because write operations
are more I/O intensive than reads. To help estimate your own read/write ratio, consider the usage patterns of a company that has a heavy mailbox profile. In a production environment, the company can expect to incur read/write ratios between 75/25 percent and
66/33 percent, depending on the group of users being evaluated. For a mail system consisting of 2,000 heavily used mailboxes, a total of 1,500 IOPS is generated on the database volume.
The formula to calculate this is:
- Estimated IOPS per User for User Type × Number of Users
In this example, .75 IOPS × 2,000 mailboxes=1,500 IOPS.
Using a conservative ratio of two reads for every write (66 percent reads to 33 percent writes), you would plan for 1,000 read I/O and 500 write I/O requests per second for your database volume. Every write request is first written to the transaction log file
and then written to the database. Approximately 10 percent of the total 1,500 IOPS seen on the database volume will be seen on the transaction log volume (10 percent of 1,500 is 150 IOPS); 500 write I/O requests will be written to the database. These estimated
profiles are for an Exchange server that has no other components installed beyond the base operating system. If other variables, such as third-party Personal Information Management (PIM) software, MAPI-based virus scanning (server and client side), management
and monitoring software, or backup software are used during peak usage periods, these profiles will not adequately describe the I/O profile in your organization. In these cases, you must also factor in the additional reads and writes that are requested by
these applications.
Additional information about performance metrics:
Mechanical hard drives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOPS
Some commonly accepted averages for random IO operations, calculated as 1/(seek + latency) = IOPS:
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Device
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Type
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IOPS
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Interface
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7,200 rpm SATA drives
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HDD
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~75-100 IOPS[2]
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SATA 3 Gbit/s
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10,000 rpm SATA drives
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HDD
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~125-150 IOPS[2]
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SATA 3 Gbit/s
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10,000 rpm SAS drives
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HDD
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~140 IOPS[2]
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SAS
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15,000 rpm SAS drives
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HDD
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~175-210 IOPS[2]
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SAS
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We can then make some assumptions.
- 1 IOPS = 1,750 Concurrent Users
- .5 IOPS = 3,500 Concurrent Users
- .25 IOPS = 7,000 Concurrent Users
Based on round robin, these concurrent User numbers would double.
Additional information about calculation IO:
Calculating IOPS requirements
To determine the IOPS requirements for a database, look at the number of users hosted on the database and consider the guidance provided in the following table to compute total required IOPS when the database is active or passive.
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Messages sent or received per mailbox per day
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Estimated IOPS per mailbox (Active or Passive)
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50
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0.034
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100
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0.067
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150
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0.101
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200
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0.134
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250
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0.168
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300
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0.201
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350
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0.235
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400
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0.268
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450
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0.302
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500
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0.335
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