Hard Drive and RAID

[EnriquePHX]

I am about to install ESX 4i on an HP DL380. I have 6 300 GB Hard Drives. I will not be attaching to any SAN.

I am trying to figure out how to RAID my hard drives to maximize space with some fault tolerance. I am trying to avoid loosing 2 300GB drives for my ESX install (RAID 0) and the rest of the drives for storage.

I thought about using a USB device but this system will be used by other people, so I wanted something more permanent and was also worried that the USB device would get lost so kinda don't want to go that route.

Looking for ideas on how I should setup my hard drives.

[DSTAVERT]

DL380s (started with G5) should have an internal slot for USB or SD specifically for this purpose. Use a 1GB or larger USB stick. ESXi doesn't use more. Leave all the drives for storage.

[DSTAVERT]

This is a supported install option with the installer CD. Very little writing to the stick. 1 per hour for config backup. You can set up a datastore scratch disk otherwise it is to ramdisk.

[EnriquePHX]

I just missed it i have a G4.

[a_p_]

As DSTAVERT mentioned, the DL380G5 has an internal USB port. On the other side you should be able to configure all disks as one RAID and then split it into volumes. e.g. 10GB for the Hypervisor (should be more than enough) and the rest for the datastore.

To do this you need to use the ACU (Array Configuration Utility) from the Smartstart CD.

André

[a_p_]

DL380G4? In this case only ESX(i) 3.5 is supported, however ESX(i) 4.0 will run (unsupported) limited to 32-bit guests due to the missing VT capability.

Which RAID controller do you have in the system? Does it have BBWC?

André

[DSTAVERT]

ESXi only requires a 5GB partition. 1GB for OS and 4GB for scratch.

[ScottBentley]

The DL380 G4 is not on the HCL for 4.x the highest supported version of ESXi is 3.5 u5

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[DSTAVERT]

Moving to the ESXi forum

[DSTAVERT]

Depending on the processors you may be able to install 4.0 although unsupported.

[Josh26 · Accepted solution]

I am trying to figure out how to RAID my hard drives to maximize space with some fault tolerance. I am trying to avoid loosing 2 300GB drives for my ESX install (RAID 0) and the rest of the drives for storage.

Why lose drives at all?

6 x 300GB in RAID5 = 1500GB.

Install ESXi there, or install it on a USB stick.

And definitely don't use RAID 0.

[EnriquePHX]

OK it installed fine and I don't mind only 32 bit OS's. I used the RAID 5 with about 1.4 TB. Will my virtual machines/data store and theESX OS be fine all in the same partition? Do I need to research about creating another 10GB or so partition for the hypervisor?

BTW, thanks for all the quick replies

[EnriquePHX]

Which RAID controller do you have in the system? Does it have BBWC?

I will look at this in the A.M.

[Josh26]

Hi,

Do not create partitions on a VMWare disk.

It works with a complete disk, this is how it is meant to operate.

[EnriquePHX]

So is it safe to say that with ESXi installed on my RAID, I can also use this storage to install my VM's. Is this a safe method? Or should I really install on to a USB (tho I really don't want to do this).

Sorry if I keep asking so many questions just want to make sure I am building this correctly so I won't have to rebuilt again down the road.

[Josh26]

So is it safe to say that with ESXi installed on my RAID, I can also use this storage to install my VM's. Is this a safe method? Or should I really install on to a USB (tho I really don't want to do this).

There's no reason at all that this wouldn't be safe.

We run servers in both configurations - with a USB stick, and with local installs. They both have their positives and negatives, but they are both safe.

[EnriquePHX]

OK been running for a week everything is running great. Thank for all the help and bearing with me.