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BrendanMarmont
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Large 2TB + vm's - Whats the best practice?

Hi,

Our file server is currently using extent with a total DS size of 4TB. The vm contains 11 vDisks with sizes ranging from 50GB to 1.35TB totalling 3.8TB of data; each vDisk belongs to a division within the company. We are running out of space on the DS and need to make some changes.

I have not read anything positive about the use of extent other than for a short fix.

Question: What are the best practices moving forward ridding ourselves of using extent, it's been suggested we look at DFS or perhaps a new VM purposed solely for the larger divisions.

If we add a new disk and point it to a separate DS on it's own LUN, we run into the trouble of storage vMotion trying to group the disk under the one store.

I'm sure there are larger organisations out there running into this situation, any guidance is appreciated!

Cheers

Brendan

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AndreTheGiant
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If you need a fileserver, than DFS could be a solution.

You can use more vmdk on the same VM, or more fileservers.

For other purpose you can use the junction to mount a disk under a folder.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro

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bilalhashmi
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Did you consider have seperate vmdk for each partition? This way you wont have the need to have extents unless you have a partition that requires more than 2TB of room. But there are ways to get around that as well and make it to where the data resides on two different vmdks. I personally dont like using extents in production for all the things that could go wrong. And the thought of running multiple partitions in the same vmdk that has extents just makes me a little uncomfortable.

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AndreTheGiant
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If you need a fileserver, than DFS could be a solution.

You can use more vmdk on the same VM, or more fileservers.

For other purpose you can use the junction to mount a disk under a folder.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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BrendanMarmont
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Thanks for the replies, can you elaborate a bit on "For other purpose you can use the junction to mount a disk under a folder."

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DSTAVERT
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Assuming this is Windows but it is possible to mount a disk to a folder rather than give the disk a drive letter.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753321.aspx

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AndreTheGiant
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Thanks for the replies, can you elaborate a bit on "For other purpose you can use the junction to mount a disk under a folder."

Junction is the Microsoft name of Unix hard link.

But for volumes is the mode to mount them not with a new letter, but under a directory of an existing volume.

(See in disk management snap-in).

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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