For a new stand alone ESX server i'm configuring a fujitsu-siemens RX300 S3. The machine is on the HCL, so not a problem there. However i'm trying to make my mind up on the internal disk configuration. There will be no SAN. Right now i have 4 SAS disks which will be setup in raid 5 or -if supported- raid 10. This will be the primary VMFS storage.
Since february this year, the machine also supports SATA disks, so i would like to use that and add 2 big SATA disks (raid 1) for:
a) booting the ESX server itself
b) add ext2 filesystem storage so that i have a spot to temporarily save my VMs
I have asked this same question to my hardware supplier and FSC but the answer i got so far was that it is currently not supported and i should ask vmware, but they already admit it might take months (so no thanks)
The answer i got now is for the question "is it supported" (i can guess that simple question) but i asked "does it work".
It would be nice to know before buying those disks, anyone here that has tried it with this server?
Answering my own question:
Got the feedback from FSC today and it is not possible. With the current firmware, the onboard SAS controller would have to be downgraded in order to be able to also use SATA disks next to the SAS ones.
This would void the support on the machine for both Fujitsu-Siemens as well as vmware as it is not a supported configuration.
Which is not an option, so SAS it is.