How to setup an ESX test environment?

[Uwe2]

Existing:

Intel Server 2x 3GHZ

2 GB Ram

internal RAID System

6x 72 GB SCA Disks

The question is how to configure the disk system?

Is ESX setup able to configure the RAID system?

If not: what is the best setup for the disks?

Please give some hints how to proceed!

THX

[PerryWhittle]

i would set the RAID array up in the RAID bios utility (generally press F8 when the raid controller initialises. Watch the boot screen it will prompt you).

Set up a RAID 5 array and then partition the disk using the installation wizard utility. Check your documentation for recommended partitions/sizes to use.

[Uwe2]

So one RAID5 over all HDDs.

There is no need to or it is not useful to have other configuration, eg. mirror for two disks just for the ESX Kernel system and RAID5 for all virtual machines?

[PerryWhittle]

what ever you prefer or works for you. Unlike windows systems i dont see the need for separate RAIDs for this kind of Unix configuration (if anybody else has other ideas please jump in). I setup each of my ESX servers as 1 large RAID 5 array (have a spare disk just in case ). All essential info to backup will be in the VC and its database. i dont see there would be any performance gains in this case.

[acr]

Typically youd RAID1 the first two Disks for the OS then RAID 5 (well RAID50 if you could) the other 4..

As this is for Test.. I wouldnt do RAID 5 for production..

If its storage you need then you can RAID 5 the lot, after all its test not production..

[Uwe2]

@arc

That's why I was askin.

Windows would be setup this way to get higher performance. And a testing system is not just but for performance testing too. So I really would like to setup the ideal environment I can get. For the 6 SCA backplane bays there are 2x9GB 10K, 2x18GB 15K, 2x36GB 15K and 6x72GB 15k or 10K available. RFor Windows I'd used 2x18 RAID1 + 4 72GB RAID5, but as I am not experienced with Linux/Unix/ESX I am askin here!

Greetz + THX 4 help!

[PerryWhittle]

>Typically youd RAID1 the first two Disks for the OS then RAID 5 (well >RAID50 if you could) the other 4..

if you use Vmotion and have a SAN then you would probably end up with the above config any. For my servers i have used RAID 5, the box is easily recoverable in the event of failure (just stick the cd in) and all my important config data is in Virtual Centre

you cant compare winblows to unix they're totally different animals