Best practice for adding more SAN-space

[GreyhoundHH]

Hello,

we've come to a point where we have to add more SAN-space to our environment. Currently we're using 200GB and want to add an extra 200GB. Its is most likely that we'll have to add more and more in the not too distant future. What ist the best practice to handle this? If possible I'd like to avoid stacking up more and more LUNs in terms of flexiblity and managability. On the other hand I cannot risk losing any contents on the existing LUN.

Our setup:

SAN connected via FC (administration is not in our hands)

ESX 3.5

VC 2.5

At the moment, I'm not sure if we have the feature StorageVMotion licensed. At least it's not shown in the "licensed features" section.

Any recommendations appreciated!

thx

[rubensluque · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I think that the best option is creating a new separate LUN instead growing a existent vmfs volume. When you add more luns to extend an existent vmfs volume, you have only spanned volumes then you will not gain additional performance. It's also dangerous because if one lun extent is removed accidentally you lost the entire vmfs volume. The ESX 3.5 supports the Storage Vmotion feature you need to install the Remote CLI packet in VirtualCenter or in your workstation manager.

This document describes the best practices to handle vmfs in VMware ESX:

regards,

Rubens

[GreyhoundHH]

Hi and thanks for your answer!

I'm currently playing with the storage-vmotion and it seems to work very well. Didn't know that this is not integrated in VC though.

What you are mentioning about spanned volumes is what I've read and heard of in serveral sources now. I think, we'll go with the option of working with additional LUNs. The Storage Vmotion gives us enough flexibility.

bye

[Datto]

Just a thought -- If you're willing to try an unsupported GUI plug in created for use with Storage Vmotion, you could try the svmotion plugin at http://www.lostcreations.com.

Datto