Most VMware best practices apply to VDI environments, but there are a few changes required due to the nature of high-density VM configurations. For VMware best practices and how to apply them, see these documents:
With most applications and workloads, storage traffic is typically 70% reads. There are applications that generate all reads or all writes, but the average is a 70/30 read/write ratio. VDI is typically 70-80% writes. The array-sizing changes are based on the higher write ratio.
For best practices for Horizon on PowerStore, see the document Dell EMC PowerStore: VMware Horizon Best Practices Guide.
Volume count
There are several factors that determine the optimal volume count with Horizon on PowerStore. The volume count will vary based on the scenario. Performance and management overhead are typically the two most important factors when determining the number of volumes.
For performance reasons, a minimum of 16 volumes is recommended for a VDI environment. This configuration ensures good queue balancing and reduces I/O bottlenecks.
Balance this volume recommendation with the need to keep the volume count low to reduce management overhead. The VMware guidance for volume count should also be considered. Internal testing shows that 16 volumes can support 3,600 users from a performance perspective, but it may have an impact on VM recovery from a backup. Using array-based snapshots reduces recovery time and minimizes the impact of higher user-per-volume counts.
This configuration consists of 16 volumes for VM storage.
