New installation but dont see my 2 drives

[srivard]

Hello, i have just install a new server with 4 2TB drives. I made a 400GB LUN and a 2.3TB LUN with HP quick Start CD.

I have isnatll my ESX 4.1 ont the 400GB but i cant see my othe partition to add it to a new datastore

Help please!

[AndreTheGiant]

You must build disk smaller than 2 TB -512

Is a know limit of vSphere.

Andre

[Chamon]

The largest LUN can only be 2TB minus 512bites. ESX cant see anything over this 2TB

[MauroBonder]

if you need a documentation about it http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100356...

maximum supported is 2tb minus 512

Please, don't forget the awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers. 

Mauro Bonder - Moderator

[a_p_]

ESXi does not need much disk space. What I usually do is to create a logical volume with 10GB for ESXi (6 GB would actually be sufficient) and split the remaining disk space into logical volumes smaller than the max supported size.

André

[srivard]

Thank for the info, I am new here but want to learn!

What i did is i have done 400GB thinking to put my OS there and wanted to do lage drive to put my data.

From what i see here i should of done a smal 10gb for vmware to install and after that split the rest for my OS say 400GB and the rest for my data. Do i understand corectley?

Also when i install my OS, will i be able to have a C fo OS and have a D for data?

This paticular install is to move 2 independant server to a new bigger, faster and redudant server.

I will have to move the 2 host to this ESX installation.

The 2 server aree as followed

Machine 1 exchange and DC (Small buisness 2008)

C = 200GB

D = 400GB

Machine 2 (file sharing for cad drawing)

C= 80GB

D= 4=500GB

Thank your again for the great help:))

[a_p_]

I assume the 4 disks will run in a single RAID set, so IMO there's no performance benefit in creating the OS and data disks on different datastores.

The 10GB volume I recommended is for the (rare) case that you need to reinstall ESXi, because a reinstallation of ESXi completely wipes/reformats the installation disk. In case of a dedicated ESXi volume, your VMFS datastores would be safe.

No matter how you are going to stup the logical volumes, make sure you select at least a 4 MB block size (for virtual disks up to ~1 TB) when you create the VMFS datastores to be able to create your virtual disks with the mentioned sizes.

Also when i install my OS, will i be able to have a C fo OS and have a D for data?

It's up to you, how you configure the virtual machine. Just add a second virtual HDD to the VM if you want to have C: and 😧 on separate virtual disks.

André

[srivard]

Man i am running in some trouble today

New system this time it is:

Dell r510 perc H200

2x 300gb raid 1 for the esx install ( way to mutch but already ordered...)

4 x 2tb for datastore

My install goes ok for esx but i cant manage to create 2 smaller seize of less than 2tb on my system.

First, i can t find the tool to create the LUN after the raid 10 is done. It is not in the bios tool and not on the CD.

With HP i have a bootable Array configuration utility but i cant find it with Dell.

Is there a way to do it in ESX or anny other idea???

Small problem that makes me loos too mutch time:(

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

You will not be able to break up the array when using RAID 10. Use RAID 5 and then create the virtual disks

[srivard]

WOW are you shure of that, my controler is not doing other than 0-1-10....

Is it a speficity of raid 10?

[DSTAVERT]

I didn't look at the controller. I only know that Dell doesn't allow splitting RAID 10 or 50. You will need to create 2 separate arrays.

[a_p_]

DSTAVERT is correct, most LSI based controllers don't support to split any RAID x0 set into multiple logical volumes. What you may do in this case is to create 2 separate RAID 1 sets. Regarding the H200. This controller does not have an option to add battery-backed cache (BBU) to operate in write-back mode, which is necessary to get a good disk performance with ESXi.

André

[DSTAVERT]

Several times in this discussion people have mentioned the 2TB minus 512 byte limit. Creating 2 \\tow RAID 1 arrays should work but if possible make the array size 1.9TB

[srivard]

You guys are great, I have been on that testing downloading and rebooting for the past 1 1/2 day...

Got some post on dell with no response

Was on phone with Dell for 2 hours and they never told me that...

Now  i saw a Dell PERC H700 6Gb/s 512MB Cache RAID w/BBU on ebay at a resonable price.

What do you think?

Also i don't want to do 2 raid 1 drive since i will lose performance and security.

Thank you again André and DSTAVERT

[DSTAVERT]

The Perc H700 with caching will provide much better performance. The new controller won't help with the 2TB size limit on datastore size. You will need to either create two RAID 1 or RAID 5 and 2TB virtual disks.

[srivard]

I understand that but i will do a RAID 5 with 3x 1.92TB hard partition (LUN)  since i will have a lot more space with RAID 5 than 10

So i will be abel to do 3 datastore and esx will see them ok, everything will be good right?

Sébastien

[DSTAVERT]

That should work although I don't know your controller.

[a_p_]

From a performance point of view, you should not create a RAID 5 with 3 disks. This is the slowest configuration you can have, since with RAID 5 each write access needs to lock 2 discs at the same time! It would be much better to add all 4 disks to the RAID 5 set.

I read that you mentioned you already ordered the disks, however I would probably use only the 4 x 2 TB disks with a RAID 5 and create multiple logical volumes. The first one for ESXi (~10 GB) and the others for VMFS (< 2 TB). Maybe you find another server where you can use the 300 GB disks.

André