what size luns should i present to ESX servers?

[mark_a_k]

I am configuring an esx cluster and the san disk is ready to be presented to the servers. I have 2tb of disk. I am not sure what size luns should i present to the esx server. Shoud i present one large lun or several smaller luns and spread the location of the virtual servers? What is the recommendation? Thank you

[acr]

The question of One large LUN or multiple small LUNs comes up often, we generally recommend multiple smaller LUNs say 350 - 500G..

[esiebert7625]

I would create 4 500GB LUN's, in general it's recommended to not exceed 500-600GB LUN size, the below posts talk about this...

LUNS - http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=333672&#333672

LUNS Size - http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=36725

Sizing LUN for enough free space after VM - http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=649338

Smaller LUNS or Larger LUNS - http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=90203

Fyi…if you find this post helpful, please award points using the Helpful/Correct buttons.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Thanks, Eric

Visit my website: http://vmware-land.com

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Texiwill · Accepted solution]

Hello,

This also depends on the size of your VMDKs, and VMs. There is basic math to outline how big your LUNs should be based on an average of 12-15 VMs per LUN.

Size of VMDK + 1 MB (for sundry files) + upto 4GB for Log files + Size of VMDK for Delta files + Size of Allocated Memory swap file.

If you want more than one VMDK per machine then add in their sizes as appropriate. If you will be diligent about removing rotated logfiles then 4GB may be too much.

Generally you only want 12-15 VMs per VMFS. But this truly depends on your application mix. If you have a DB I may put it on its own VMFS or use RDMS/Raw. several write intensive VMs on the same VMFS may not be the best thing.

Best regards,

Edward

Message was edited by:

Texiwill