Install on USB drive or RAID

[cookieme]

I'm new to ESXi, so excuse me if this is trivial. I have read that many run ESXi from a USB stick rather than internal hard disks. Can someone please explain why and what the benefits are?

I am considering ESXi and unfortunately my HP server is not on the HCL. I only have one server and plan on having 3 VMs. Would I install ESXi on a USB stick and use my 2x72.8GB UltraSCSI320 hard drives setup as RAID 1 for storing my 3 VMs or have ESXi and the 3 VMs on the hard drives? What is preferred way of setting this up?

Thanks

[microkid]

When you install ESXi on an USB stick, upgrading is easy. Just replace the USB stick, no need to install anything on your harddisk. Also, when running multiple ESXi hosts with shared storage, you can run them without any harddisk at all.

Your suggestion to run ESXi from USB and use your harddisks for the VM's is a good one, many people use it like that. Me too

[cookieme]

Hi microkid. Thanks for the quick reply! A few follow up questions.

- I have read that ESXi installed on a USB stick by HP is available. Does it differ from a USB stick that I would purchase and load with ESXi HP CIM?

- When you say that you just replace the USB stick and upgrade. I assume that you have to power off the server first, perform the upgrade on the USB and then attach it and boot, right?

- If the server fails and I have the 3 VMs on some other backup. Is it enough to just remove the USB stick, attach it to another compatible server and move my VMs to that new server?

- Is it enough to have two disks in RAID 1 for my 3 VMs or would I need more disks? Not in regards to space, but performance/ redundancy?

Thanks

[microkid]

Don't know about the HP thing, but the answer on the 3 other questions is "yes"

[cookieme]

Don't know about the HP thing, but the answer on the 3 other questions is "yes"

Can you please clarify what you said yes too in the below question:

Is it enough to have two disks in RAID 1 for my 3 VMs or would I need more disks? Not in regards to space, but performance/ redundancy?

[microkid · Accepted solution]

well, assuming this is a kind of home server, 2 or 3 VM's would only take approx 50-60GB of disk storage. So your 2 x 72GB disks in raid-1 would be sufficient.

Reminder: make sure you use hardware raid and that your SCSI raid controller is on the HCL, because most onboard raid controllers rre not supported.

[cookieme]

Thanks. Btw this is not a home server. This is actually my company server. Small business with two users, hence the 2 Windows XP Pro VMs and one Windows 2003 server VM. After looking at the HCL it looks as if my RAID controller HP Smart Array 642 is not supported. I'll give it a try and see what happens.

[DSTAVERT]

HP does have preinstalled USB stick available. I wouldn't expect it to be up to date.About $50. It can install to the internal USB port specifically meant for this purpose. The HP versions have specialized monitoring modules. It can be downloaded from HP. I posted something in this forum pointing to the HP download.

Updating using the vSphere update tool can apply patches and updates remotely without removing the stick. It will mean restarting the host so VM would need to be shut down.

[Josh26]

I've discussed this before on this forum, and been shot down, so take my statement with a grain of salt.

I've been there done that with the HP USB stick installation. Despite having a four hour response care pack, when that USB stick failed, it took nearly two weeks to get it replaced. Yes, I ended up buying my own, but that still meant:

• A full days downtime before you figure out what exactly is wrong. It's not like USB keys support SMART

• An hour to reinstall and reconfigure networking. Most of the proponents of this system argue this could be done quicker, and fail to see the rest of the time involved.

• In my case, multiple trips between the server and my current location, two hours in each direction

The other scenario is the one where you install ESXi on the RAID mirrors, one fails, you get an alert, HP come out and hot swap the disk at some point with no downtime.

Edit: And no, there is no difference between the ESXi installation that you buy from HP on a key, and installing it yourself on a key using the HP CIM edition. Unforutnately, when I last checked, HP's agents weren't vSphere suported yet, which meant ESXi 3.5. Manually installing ESXi 3.5 on a USB key is non-intuitive, which is why vendors have taken to supplying preinstalled keys. They charge a lot more for it too.

[DSTAVERT]

I do understand the single point of failure. Certainly something to be aware of when making any critical infrastructure decision. I have also had those same single point failures with RAID controllers, motherboards and RAM failures. Yes HP replaced them quickly and I was back in business. To my mind the failure of a USB stick is less disruptive. Easy to have a spare ready to go and I don't need to be concerned that an upgrade will touch the datastore drive.

[cookieme]

Very interesting information from both you Josh26 and DSTAVERT. I'm still learning so please bear with me.

DSTAVERT is there any benefit of purchasing HP's USB sticks over another generic make like Sandisk and loading ESXi myself? If I am going to implement ESXi it seems that using a USB stick for ESXi and my RAID 1 for the datastore is the preferred method.

I will try ESXi for the first time this week and I hope it goes well since my HP Proliant ML350G4p is not listed on the HCL.

[DSTAVERT]

There is no benefit. VMware posted something but it may have been in regards to the 4 beta. It listed Sandisk, Kingston, Verbatum, I believe. Minimum 1 GB. Sandisk is fine but you want to make sure it isn't U3 or wipe the CD partition if it is.

Not being on the HCL is not a good sign. ESXi 4 requires capabilities beyond just 64bit

I would download the processor check utility (I think it is available from that link). You would probably not support 64bit OS's in any case since I don't think that you would have BIOS virtualization support. If it isn't capable I would strongly suggest that you use ESXi 3.5 if this would be for a production environment.

[cookieme]

WRT USB stick size is any data written to it after I've loaded ESXi on it? If 1GB is minimum is there a recommended size, i.e. 2GB or larger?

I have run Intel's Processor CPU ID and my processor is 64bit capable with hyperthreading, but does not support Intel VT.

I am not interested in running any 64bit OS. Also, my HP server is not on the HCL for any ESXi version unfortunately. Is this a big problem? I had it confirmed from another forum member here that he has the same server and runs ESX4.

Should I forget about ESXi? Not use version 4?

Many questions. Sorry

UPDATE: I just had a look at the HP VMware ESXi 4.0 Getting Started Guide. It says and I quote:

VMware ESXi only supports the following installation destinations for HP VMware

ESXi:

• Any HP hard drive supported for a server

• Secure Digital (SD) memory card

• Flash media (USB flash drive)

The following flash devices are supported:

o Kingston Flash Memory Secure Digital Elite Pro: Description—2GB Secure

Digital Card (50x), Part Number: HP-SD/2GB-S available from the Kingston

website (http://www.kingston.com/hpoffer/).

o v100ss 2GB USB Flash Drive, part number FD2GBHP100-BLK-SMA-T

To purchase the v100ss USB flash drive, call PNY at 800-769-4221.

VMware ESXi does not support any other USB or SD card devices.

[DSTAVERT]

If it were me, I would only use a platform that had full supportability. There are lots of people happily running ESXi on platforms that have no support. If something didn't go well late some night do you have the background to get yourself going again. Without a platform known to behave a certain way you may not get help when it really counts.

Some servers just didn't get tested for any version and may in fact work well. I would definitely consider my options carefully. If you have time to do some thorough testing you could certainly give it a try.

[Josh26]

I do understand the single point of failure. Certainly something to be aware of when making any critical infrastructure decision. I have also had those same single point failures with RAID controllers, motherboards and RAM failures. Yes HP replaced them quickly and I was back in business. To my mind the failure of a USB stick is less disruptive. Easy to have a spare ready to go and I don't need to be concerned that an upgrade will touch the datastore drive.

How is the failure of a USB drive less disruptive than a hotswappable RAID disk?

If it's "easy to have a spare ready to go" I'm guessing your servers aren't in datacenters that are a pain to go visit in the middle of the night.

[DSTAVERT]

Datacenter is a pain, always. I just like the convenience. All the server manufacturers are making it available. I use HP and they are now supporting internal SD cards. If it was a really bad decision from a failure rate perspective I would guess it wouldn't have made out of the labs. You had a failure and I understand your reluctance to trust it. Thankfully no one has made it mandatory to have the server boot from USB or there would a lot of angry people.

[cookieme]

If it were me, I would only use a platform that had full supportability. There are lots of people happily running ESXi on platforms that have no support. If something didn't go well late some night do you have the background to get yourself going again. Without a platform known to behave a certain way you may not get help when it really counts.

Some servers just didn't get tested for any version and may in fact work well. I would definitely consider my options carefully. If you have time to do some thorough testing you could certainly give it a try.

I take your point and agree that using supported hardware would be the way to go. However, I'm not ready to throw out my almost 3 year old HP Proliant server when it is in perfect condition. Initially, I wasn't even thinking of using ESXi, but after struggling with VMware Server I have reconsidered. I haven't tested ESXi yet, so I really don't know what to expect.

I'm at the research stage and trying to gather as much information on the use and configuration of ESXi before I do some testing.

Thanks

[DSTAVERT]

Testing is perfect. You shouldn't have any problems and if you do it is part of learning. Get yourself going with what you have.

If I didn't mention it consider the[online training class|http://mylearn1.vmware.com/mgrreg/courses.cfm?ui=www&a=det&id_course=14798&src=EM_08Q3_VMW_ESXi_Emai1CTA_online%20training%20course].

[anujmodi1]

Well install USB will give advantages over diskless enviournement , specially in blade servers. But managing the USB bit painful cause don't provide the flexibility of service console in that, yeah still tech-support mode is available for doing some testing directly on ESXi or configuring ssh on host server,

But no worries, vMA appliance will be good tool to manage everything..

Best of luck with your testing....AM

[cookieme]

Testing is perfect. You shouldn't have any problems and if you do it is part of learning. Get yourself going with what you have.

If I didn't mention it consider the[online training class|http://mylearn1.vmware.com/mgrreg/courses.cfm?ui=www&a=det&id_course=14798&src=EM_08Q3_VMW_ESXi_Emai1CTA_online%20training%20course].

Yep, I am going to do this course: http://store.vmware.com/store/vmware/en_US/DisplayProductDetailsPage/productID.104519700

I'm sure I'll be back with further questions once I get started

Thanks