vmdk,vmfs, san, VM, mulitple datastores and volumes.

[Thushyaaa]

Hello,

I am in the middle of creating a MV for a windows server which will have some data for file sharing ( around 10 folders close to 5TB ). I have to find a best to way to create this VM with proper sizing of datastore, number of datastore to be used and the number of volumes need to span the datastore or best recomondation.

I do not think vmware would support 5TB of datastore in near future, max is less than 2TB, so i have the options to put all the datastores into one volume of 5TB or in multiple 2TB, 2TB, 1TB volumes and create the VM with 6 disks ( C=80GB, D=1TB, E=1TB, F=1TB, G=1TB and  H=1TB).  All my folders are less than 1TB in size and will not grow more than 1TB. Due to datastore size limitation.

I am looknig for some best pratice, expereimented solution or recomondations. this should easy management of the VM, easy migration between host, migration easy between datastores or volumes, volume replicate or volume snapshot, etc.. this VM will be put into the cluster.

Thanks in advance.

[AndreTheGiant]

If you have an iSCSI storage you can simple use a guest iSCSI to add a GPT volume with the required size.

Otherwise you must use more vmdk and different share or the Windows mount points.

Andre

[a_p_]

From what you write, I would probably create 6 separate datastores with 8 MB block size. The first one - in which you create the VM - with enough disk space for the OS and the space needed for VMware based snapshots. The other datastores with 1TB, one for each volume. This way you have the chance to grow the datastores/volumes in the future and - in case of SAN based snapshots - you can create/restore the snapshots volume based.

André

[DSTAVERT]

If you have a curent physical folder layout you are trying to recreate you can use DFS or mounts to put multiple disks spread across multiple datastores in the manner described by a.p.

[Thushyaaa]

if i use more than one datastore with more than one volume, how could I move one datastore from one volume to another keeping the rest as it is ? will be any issue migrating VMs between datastores ?

[a_p_]

I'm not sure what exactly you want to move. Can you please clarify the question? An example would be helpful.

André

[Thushyaaa]

The VM has 5 datastores and each datastore resides in a dedicated volume, for an example
dst1 -> volume_A
dst2 -> volume_B
dst3 -> volume_C
dst4 -> volume_D
dst5 -> volume_E

now i would like to move dst1 to volume_X, leave the rest as it is ( no changes to ds2, 3, 4 and 5 ).

new
dst1 -> volume_X
dst2 -> volume_B
dst3 -> volume_C
dst4 -> volume_D
dst5 -> volume_E

how could do this without impacting the VM or without taking down ? ( ds1 could be hosting data or os ).

thanks again.

[DSTAVERT]

If you have a license that includes Storage vMotion you can move the vmdk from one physical location to another. You can move one or more while the VM is running.

[Thushyaaa]

I have the license, but my q is when i will perform the storage  vMontion, would it give me some option to select and move individual  datastore from one volume to another or it will perform all datastores  to a single destination volume ?

[Thushyaaa]

I mean, when moving the VMDK from one datastore to another on the fly will it impact my running VM or do i need to do any inventory adjustment. I see that i could move vmdk individually - thanks for the note.

[DSTAVERT]

Storage vMotion does not move datastores but it can move VMDK disks. As I said you can move one or more while the VMs are running.

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

I would suggest that you set up a small test and storage vMotion for your self. Do understand the limitations of Storage vMotion

[Thushyaaa]

Dstavert,

Thanks for the quick reply, in addition could you  shed some info / example using DFS to expose all the shared folders in  single collection ? ( i know it is out of VM scope ).

[DSTAVERT]

Microsoft DFS (Distributed File System) gives you an abstracted way to view Windows file shares. If you look at a single file system say on drive D and opened it up, DFS would alow you to recreate that folder view but each folder or sub folder could come from a different location. That location could be a local folder on the same drive, a local folder on a different drive or a share on a totally different server. You can use DFS replication to make a redundant folder structure in different locations but all referenced by a single name space (folder view).

This isn't a particularly good explanation but I am sure you can find good ones on Microsoft's website.

[Thushyaaa]

will check more, Thanks.