SuperMicro X7SPE-HF-D525 + ESXi 5 + RAID

[sutoor]

Hi,

Ok, first of all, I do know that this is not a supported board. I've managed to install and run ESXi 5 though and I like it very much so far.

What I can not understand is howto get ESXi to install on RAID mirroring on this mother board, has anyone got RAID and ESXi to work?

Thanks in advance!

br,

Chris

[sparrowangelste · Accepted solution]

riad needs to be hardware raid.

software raid not supported iirc.

[sutoor]

Aah, damn! I didn't know that, I should have done my reading...

Thanks for the prompt answer!

br,

Chris

[sutoor]

Ok, I was thinkin 5minutes what to do with the "spare HDD" then when ESXi doesn't like RAID on my board.

Would it be a good or bad idea to store snap shots on the "spare HDD"? Can a snap shot be restored on a newly installed ESXi?

[sparrowangelste]

i would keep snaps with the vmdk.

maybe you can just make 2 VMFS volumes instead of 1 large one.

[sutoor]

Hi again,

..and thanks for your reply.

As you probably understand by now, I'm new to this.

I actually came to the conclusion that a snapshot is not the same thing as a backup of the entire virtual machine (snapshot = only the difference between the virtual machine and changes made to snapshot).

I guess I could write a script and put it into cron that copies the entire virtual machines from HDD1 to HDD2 ~every month or so? Which files needs to be copied and most important, does the virtual machines need to be powered off before I copy?

Sorry for getting off topic!

br,

Chris

[sparrowangelste]

ghettovcb  http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760

veeam  free backup

those are the best 2 free backups tools so far.

[sutoor]

Super, thank you! Have a great weekend!