Datastore question.

[CDEvans20111014]

Sorry to have to ask, but I've been unable to find an answer.

HP ProLiant Athlon II Neo N36L MicroServer

4x 2Tb Eco-green Drives in software raid 5 running server 2008 R2.

I'm looking to install ESXi onto a USB stick, and use a old 2Tb drive as the first datastore, but is there anyway to get my old (or new if I have to rebuild) raid array to be seen by all VM's I setup, the hardware isn't supported by ESXi so it would have to be sortware raid.

[john23]

If the hardware is not supported, esxi will not be able to see . AFAIK, There is no way you can see the hardware in the vm.

[CDEvans20111014]

hence why I'm not using hardware (unsupported) raid. The raid array would be software based, as it is now.

ESXi can see the drives, but I can't get the VM's to see the array.

[mcowger]

There is no way to use software RAID within ESXi.

You *MIGHT* be able to get a *single* VM to use the remaining drives as a software RAID group by assigning all three of them to a single VM as physical mode RDMs, but its definitly not guarenteed.

[CDEvans20111014]

Damn, many thanks for the help gents.