Advice on using local SSD on Google Compute Engine (GCE)

Cloud Google Compute Engine (GCE)
1

Hy, Till we’re using a GCE cluster with local-ssd disks we’ve facing instability problems.

We have now some responses.

First, deactivate the swap as it is placed on the local-SSD disk. When using Aerospike with indexes only in ram with SSD configuration, the entire disk is used and drop the swap reserved space, but the system can try to use it and will fail.

The other big problem is instances failing without particular reasons, cpu, disk space, used ram, all is ok, but server become unreachable and must be restarted. If you restart a local-SSD instance you’ll loose the disk too.

We just had an information from Google, that can help to understand this problem :

"Dear Google Cloud Platform customer,

We have detected that your Google Cloud Developer project currently has a Compute Engine instance using a Local SSD device via the NVMe interface:

Google has identified an edge case performance issue with the NVMe interface that might affect any Local SSD workload that uses the NVME interface. We strongly advise you to use only the SCSI interface with Local SSD for the time being.

Google is actively working on this issue and will notify you once it has been mitigated.

PLEASE NOTE: Responses to this email message will not be monitored. If you have any questions or concerns and have a Silver, Gold or Platinum Cloud Platform support package, please open a support case via the Support Center: https://enterprise.google.com/supportcenter

Bronze customers can contact us via: https://support.google.com/cloud/contact/local_ssd_on_nvme

Best regards, Google Cloud Platform Support "

Best regards.

Emmanuel VINET

2

Thanks for posting. Good info on avoiding NVME interface on GCE.

3

Hy, we just receive good news from Google regarding nvme SSD stability. See the following response. Dear Google Cloud Platform customer,

We have previously contacted you regarding an edge case performance issue with Google Compute Engine instances using a local SSD device via the NVMe interface, which you are or were previously using in your Google Cloud Developer project :

The issue has been mitigated and the NVMe interface is now considered stable.

Thank you for your patience and understanding, and please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

PLEASE NOTE: Responses to this email message will not be monitored. If you have any questions or concerns and have a Silver, Gold or Platinum Cloud Platform support package, please open a support case via the Support Center: https://enterprise.google.com/supportcenter

Bronze customers can contact us via: https://support.google.com/cloud/contact/local_ssd_on_nvme

Best regards, Google Cloud Platform Support

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4

Hi Emmanuel,

Thanks for the update! Glad to hear that Google fixed the performance issue with Google Compute Engine instances using a local SSD device via the NVMe interface.