Hardware Recommendation

[esteban2800VBOX]

I'm looking for hardware and SAN recommendations for a small business infrastructure. We are planning to build about 10 to 20 VM servers. I'm assuming we will need about 100 TB of space. In the past, I have used Dell and IBM. I know about the hardware compatibility list. I’m just asking if anyone has a preferred model with SAN allocation. I’m looking for a bullet proof infrastructure setup at a low cost using ESX 4.0. All opinions and ideas are welcome. Thank you.

[eeg3]

We have been pleased with Dell's products. Dell even has some "business ready virtualization packages" available where you can purchase everything you will need together.

Depending on your needs, you might want to look at off-loading some of that 100TB of data on slower speed storage (like the Equallogic PS6500E) while keeping the important stuff on high-speed storage (like the Equallogic PS6000XV), as purchasing all SAS drives for that much data could be quite pricey. Equallogic SANs are very easy to administer, as well.

[AndreTheGiant]

100 TB for only 10-20 VMs? Are you sure?

With normal load 10-20 VMs can run on a single Dell PowerEdge R710... So a 2 node cluster could be fine to start.

About the storage it depends of the real space needed... Maybe a MD3200i could be fine and cheaper than and Equallogic PS series.

Andre

[esteban2800VBOX]

I don't know. I might have exagerated on the SAN allocation. We might just need 10 VM with approximately 50 TB of space. I have not done the capacity planning but it looks like it is smaller than what I thought. Any suggestions on the hardware? I like the response about Dell virtualization packages. I'm going to take a look at that today.

[Jackobli]

What kind of server will be running? Fileservers? Databases? Others?

Storage IOPS may (but not must) become a bottleneck. Plan as good as you can.