RAID Setup for VMWare

[GeorginaDK]

Hi there,

I'm currently in the process of testing virtualization for our environment and are seeking some advice as to RAID setup for the box.

We will be placing 4 guest OS on the box. Each guest OS is a Win2k3 web server running IIS. 2 of the installs will have SQL Server. There is a total of 6 hard drives in the physical box.

I was thinking either:

3 sets of RAID 1. First RAID 1 for host OS, second RAID 1 for 2 quest OS and the last RAID 1 for the remaining 2 guest OS. OR

Creating one RAID 10 and have the host OS and all guest OS on the same array.

Which setup will yield higher performance?

Thanks!

[Ken_Cline]

Which VMware product do you plan to use?

How busy will these VMs be?

Ken Cline

Technical Director, Virtualization

Wells Landers

TVAR Solutions, A Wells Landers Group Company

VMware Communities User Moderator

[GeorginaDK]

Hi Ken,

I plan to use VMWare Server.

The web servers each currently receive about 15,000 hits / day, with 25% of those hits requiring SQL access. I would like to consoladate our SQL installs on to the host OS and have the websites from the quest OS access the data stored on the host.

Thanks for your help in advance.

[Ken_Cline]

Well...first things first - I would not recommend putting your DB server on the host OS. You typically want to keep the host "lean & mean" so that it can do what it's supposed to do (provide services to virtual machines). I would much rather see you put the DB server into a VM, too.

As for the RAID configuration - it sounds like the DB server is the only thing that will be being hit much at all, so you could put everything in one big array. From a performance perspective, that would probably be the "best" solution in that you would have more spindles backing the array. That may not be your best bet from a survivability standpoint - if that one array fails, you lose everything. As with all things virtual --- it depends

Ken Cline

Technical Director, Virtualization

Wells Landers

TVAR Solutions, A Wells Landers Group Company

VMware Communities User Moderator