ESXi 5 - Two raid 1's or one raid 10?

[kungpow]

Hi, I'm planning to get a new Dell server with 4 x 2TB 7.2K RPM Near-Line SAS 6Gbps 3.5in Hot-plug hard drives.

Which raid setup will ESXi 5 run better with?

- 2 x raid 1's

or

- 1 x raid 10

With raid10, I have striping. With 2 x raid 1's, I have two completely separate raid1 sets but no stipring.

Do you recommend the 2 x raid 1 or the raid10 setup for performance?

Thanks

[a_p_]

I'd probably go with the RAID10 if performance is what matters. With that said, make sure the RAID controller you get has a BBU option installed. Battery-backed cache enables the controller to operate in write-back mode (instead of write-through) which makes a HUGE difference in disk performance.

André

[Josh26]

Agreed with everything a.p said.

Note:

kungpow wrote:

Hi, I'm planning to get a new Dell server with 4 x 2TB 7.2K RPM Near-Line SAS 6Gbps 3.5in Hot-plug hard drives.

Those aren't the fastest disks around, it's not going to be mind blowing in any RAID configuration.

[kungpow]

If I have two VMs on raid10 and the two VMs are constantly read/writing to the raid10, will they constantly compete for resources and be slower than two raid1s (one vm on one raid1 and the 2nd vm on the another raid1)?

[Josh26]

kungpow wrote:

If I have two VMs on raid10 and the two VMs are constantly read/writing to the raid10, will they constantly compete for resources and be slower than two raid1s (one vm on one raid1 and the 2nd vm on the another raid1)?

You're definining two choices here:

Two isolated arrays, where each VM constantly uses its own resources

One much faster array, where each VM fights the other for resources

The RAID10 does mean that the actions of one can impact on the other. However, the expected throughput would also be faster - even at maximum competition each VM should have access than a single VM on a single LUN, assuming that Vm was also maxing out that LUN.