Which disk controller for XP guest?

[bonne1]

With ESXi 4.0, you have the options of:

IDE

buslogic

LSI parallel

LSI SAS

and pvscsi

diskcontrollers.

I am aware that buslogic sucks, but what about the others... what should be preffered and which drivers should be used?

pvscsi is not recommened for XP, but where to get the drivers?

LSI parallel uses the LSI 20320 driver, but exacly which one is the most correct one? There are "plain", "R" and "IE" versions.

Regards, Lars.

[Troy_Clavell]

we use LSI Parallel. Attached is the driver we use.

You'll need to hit F6 then mount the floppy image. It's a little dated, but it does the job.

[bonne1]

WOW - thank you for a very quick answer...

Allthough, it is not the answer I was looking for. I am aware of F6, and I can find a working driver for parallel (but not for serial and pvscsi).

But I would like to know the differences...

In real life, SAS would be preferred over parallel, so why not also in virtual life?

And the pvscsi should give better speed and lower CPU overhead, but also include more latency, which of coarse is not good.

So... can someone tell me why to use parallel over SAS - and why not pvscsi?

Regards, Lars.

[RParker]

XP has normally been Buslogic, XP is a bit different, and SAS might be supported, but in the virutal world XP is not a server, it's a workstation, so probably VM Ware didn't make it a priority to be higher performance.

XP is going away this year, so doubtful you will see any change in this. Windows 7 however will not have any of these limitations.

You can experiment with whatever you like, but if Troy tells you something, it's wise to take his advice and not question what he MAY have left out.. He may not tell you everything, but you can bet the information he gives you is accurate.

So I would stick with LSI parallel and be happy with that.

[bonne1]

I am not at all doubting that Troy is wrong. Sorry Troy, if something opposite could be assumed from my posting.

RParker: XP is not a server - yes, I am aware... and...? (sorry... again, I am not intended to be rude)...

Regards, Lars.

[Troy_Clavell]

don't use pvscsi, it's really not worth it, unless you have a VM that is putting off some serious disk I/O. LSI P for a XP VM will be more than sufficient. the SAS Driver, from my understanding is more geared towards 2008 and MSCS.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1017652