Help With Storaage

[MosheFriedman]

I am setting up a windows 2008 server.  The machine will have two or three "DATA" Hard Drives.,  How should the DATA hard drive be set up?

                  1) A regular virtual disk

                   2) Raw Device Mapping

Thank you

Moshe

[scottyyyc]

Unless you have a specific reason not to, set them up as regular virtual disks. RDMs are usually used when you want the NTFS data sitting directly on the SAN/storage itself (eg. Exchange or SQL data for SAN-based snapshops, etc). Otherwise, for the most part, a disk is a disk - take advantage of virtual.

[alicem]

An other reason for RDM would be Microsoft Cluster on VM.

Basicly cluster data and quorum disks should be configured as RDMs.

But as scottyyyc suggested use regular virtual disks if you dont have any specific needs.

Though a more important decision would be thick or thin for the virtual disks...

[elgreco81]

Hi,

If the "data" you are referring is files (doc, xls, pdf, etc) NFS should be a very good choice (iSCSI or FC are also good, but NFS is easier to manage and more flexible)

If your data is "database" (sql, oracle, etc) I recomend you to see the VMware corresponding "best practice" paper as every one of them have different recomendations.

If you are using MCS (microsft cluster), then you should take a look at MCS best practices document.

Good luck!

Seb

[scottyyyc]

elgreco81, out of curiousity - what is it about NFS that makes it easier to manage and more flexible? I'm not arguing or debating - I'm genuinly curious as I rarely use NFS. I've researched it a bit, and there don't really seem to be any significant advantages or disadvantages...

[elgreco81]

Hi!

With NFS you just "manage folders" and forget about things like initiators, multipathing, alua, zoning. You'll have no need for extents, and you won't have to worry about LUN level blocking as with iSCSI.

I also tried to look lots of time opinions with collegues and on the internet...what I've learned is that all of the options have advantages and disadvantages, it will depend on your expirience with any given protocol, your budget, and your technical requirements what will make one of this the most suitable option.

I've also learned that storage vendors studies are all right BUT it's better if you look more than one storage vendor (you'll find pro NFS or pro block level points of view depending on the storage manufacturer). Here's one performance comparisson from VMware...

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/perf_vsphere_storage_protocols.pdf

Regards,

Seb

[MosheFriedman]

Ok now that I am setting up that Disk For My Doc & CAD Data, should it be set up as an independant disk? or not!

Thanx