Fresh install of ESXi 7 on Local SAS Storage

[CJFBMF]

I am a little lost.  I've installed ESXi 7 now several times now all on servers with a two RAID 1 SSD drives and my VM storage is an external iSCSI path attached storage device. 

I am now installing ESXi 7 on a fresh server but with 8 total - 900GB SAS Hard Drives locally attached internally with an internal Storage Controller.  The 8 local SAS HD's are all part of a RAID 1+0 array so a total of approximately 3.15TBs are available.   

My question is this - how to install ESXi using only the minimum 143GB of hard drive space using the default install method.  Why did the install use the entire 3.15TB array for the default datastore ESXI installs?  Do I have to partition my array differently in other words create two arrays, one with 2 of the 900GB hard drives for the EXSi install and the other in a 1+0 array?

[IRIX201110141 · Accepted solution]

You have to create 2 VDs on your single RAID1+0 Diskroup. This can be easily archive by reducing the 100% size which the RAID tool use automatically. So enter 132GB for creating a LUN0 and in a second step create a LUN1 with all the rest of the space.

The ESXi installer only will deal with the LUN0 during installation. On LUN2 you can later create a VMFS6 datastore for your VMs.

Regards,
Joerg

[CJFBMF]

IRIX - Thanks for the information I was afraid of that unfortunately that is not ideal but no way around creating a LUN0 and LUN1 as you indicate.  If I create two LUN's or in my Windows world two logical partitions, they would take up 2 of the 8 - 900GB drives in my server with the other logical partition using the rest of the 6 left over drives.  You see how LUN0 or logical partition 1 would use 132GB of 2, 900GB drives in a RAID 1 scenario wasting essentially 770GB of space.

I have some splainin to do to my boss!

[IRIX201110141]

I have to deal with Dell PERC and HPE SmartArray on a daily basis and both call it VD(Virtual Disks). Iam pretty sure that every real RAID controller will do it in the same or similar way. It'll be crucial for example if you will hit the 64TB boundary for example when having a RAID5 with 9 x10TB or so.

What kind of RAID controller do you have?

Regards,
Joerg

[CJFBMF]

Joerg - I have an HP DL380 Gen10 with a P408i-a SR GEN10 array controller and of course now I understand what you are saying.  I just deleted my array and recreated an array with all 8 HD's and then made Logical Drive 1, 225GB and Logical Drive 2 using the rest of the HD space.  Perfect!  One Array with Two Logical drives just what I needed.  Thanks for the advice and talking it thru so to speak!!!