{"id":58549,"date":"2023-08-22T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T07:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/?p=58549"},"modified":"2023-08-19T17:53:13","modified_gmt":"2023-08-19T15:53:13","slug":"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows\/","title":{"rendered":"StarWind NVMe-oF Initiator for Windows"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-01\"<\/p>\n

StarWind NVMe-oF Initiator is a software driver designed for Windows to improve performance with the lowest latency<\/strong> for mission-critical applications.<\/p>\n

Windows-certified and compatible with all the major NVMe-oF storage vendors<\/strong>, StarWind NVMe-oF Initiator for Windows ensures the best performance with the lowest latency with also an end-to-end enterprise support from the storage, initiator, and OS vendor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

NVMe performance in Hyper-V environments<\/h2>\n

Protocols such as iSCSI, SAS or FC<\/strong> are the most common connection types used to access storage area network (SAN) devices. While these protocols are perfectly fine with HDDs drives<\/strong>, with PCIe SSDs the latency dramatically increases<\/strong> becoming a performance bottleneck for these drives.<\/p>\n

When PCIe SSDs are presented over the network using iSCSI or FC protocols<\/strong>, the latency grows so dramatically that applications are likely to access only half of flash performance<\/strong>. In addition if the iSCSI protocol is used, an additional load on the server CPU<\/strong> is introduced affecting applications performance (pictures from StarWind<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-02\"<\/p>\n

Because only Linux environments<\/strong> can leverage NVMe drive performance, this scenario heavily affects\u00a0Windows Server users<\/strong> that could not take advantage of NVMe-oF technology.<\/p>\n

Investing an important amount of money for a full flash storage solution without obtaining the expected performance due to Windows limitation, it can be a dramatic situation for most of businesses.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

NVMe-oF Initiator for Windows solution<\/h2>\n

The\u00a0NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF)<\/strong> is a network protocol that provides a\u00a0faster and more efficient connectivity<\/strong> between storage and servers fixing the performance issues when PCIe SSDs are presented over the network.<\/p>\n

In addition there is a more efficient CPU usage<\/strong> thanks to the RDMA technology<\/strong> used in NVMe-oF that increases the efficiency of the data transmission speed between computers over the network making NVME-oF the standard protocol for shared NVMe storage<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

With StarWind NVMe-oF Initiator, Windows Server environments can now get the desired number of I\/O<\/strong> maximizing the performance provided by SSDs drives with no need of additional NVMe drives to install.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-03\"<\/p>\n

Instead of having a single queue<\/strong> as occurs using the iSCSI protocol, there are now multiple queues (up to 64K) with 64K commands each<\/strong> that allows to have a low latency.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-04\"<\/p>\n

Adding the NVMe-oF support to StarWind Virtual SAN<\/a>, NVMe drives performance are now maximized for the Windows Server environment providing all necessary I\/O<\/strong> to applications. Installing this driver on your servers, Hyper-V VMs<\/strong> can now leverage PCIe SSDs performance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Install StarWind NVMe-oF Initiator<\/h2>\n

Download the driver from StarWind and run the installer. Accept the EULA and click Next<\/strong> to start the installation.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-05\"<\/p>\n

Click Next<\/strong> to begin the installation.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-06\"<\/p>\n

Leave default Destination Location<\/strong> and click Next<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-07\"<\/p>\n

Leave default and click Next<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-08\"<\/p>\n

Click Browse<\/strong> and select the received license key then click Next<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-09\"<\/p>\n

Click Next<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-10\"<\/p>\n

Specify the MPIO settings if required then click Next<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-11\"<\/p>\n

Click Install<\/strong> to proceed.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-12\"<\/p>\n

The driver is being installed in the system.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-13\"<\/p>\n

When the installation completes successfully, click Finish<\/strong> to exit the wizard.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-14\"<\/p>\n

Open the Device Manager<\/strong> and make sure that the StarWind NVMe-oF Initiator<\/strong>\u00a0is installed on the system.<\/p>\n

\"starwind-nvme-of-initiator-for-windows-15\"<\/p>\n

Because NVMe-oF is just a driver<\/strong>, it can be installed on any software. Make sure installed NICs support RDMA<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

StarWind NVMe-oF Inititator for Windows<\/a> can be downloaded from StarWind website.<\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

StarWind NVMe-oF Initiator is a software driver designed for Windows to improve performance with the lowest latency for mission-critical applications. Windows-certified and compatible with all the major NVMe-oF storage vendors, StarWind NVMe-oF Initiator for Windows ensures the best performance with the lowest latency with also an end-to-end enterprise support from the storage, initiator, and OS vendor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"linkedin_93tdZWzMZc_93tdZWzMZc":"","facebook_2879994398731222_17841400390232720":"","twitter_113568041_113568041":"","mastodon_115463926174894442_115463926174894442":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1787,903],"tags":[2710,2711,963,932],"class_list":["post-58549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-starwind-en","category-vmware-en","tag-nvme-of","tag-pcie-ssd","tag-storage-en","tag-windows-en","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nolabnoparty.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}