Choosing hardware for small ESXi setup - RAID controller/disk and RAM questions

[neglas]

I am in the proces of finding new hardware for a small ESXi setup with around 10-12 VMs running Windows. Its a 10 people company, so there is not a very big load on any of the services we are running.

I am pretty set on choosing a Hewlett Packard ML 350 G6 LFF server with a single XEON 5504 processor and 16 GB of RAM to begin with.

RAM

The server comes with 2 x 2 GB RDIMM DDR3. I was thinking I would put another 3x4GB Kingston DDR3 1333 to reach 16 GB. Can I do that or does the RAM need to be added in pairs or something?

RAID

The RAID controller included is a P410i with zero memory. I am thinking that it will be sufficient for my needs, since there is no particular load on the disks. However, I have read that a BBWC will offer a perfomance boost, but I am unsure if it is worth the extra money? I am thinking I can always add the BBWC module later, if I find out I need it. Any thoughts on that?

DISKS

Also, I am unsure as to which disks are sufficient. Initially I was thinking that a couple of SATA 7200 RPM disks in RAID-1 would do fine. But there is also the option of going for 15.000 RPM SAS disk, but they are three times more expensive. Do you guys think it would be money well spent to opt for the SAS disks, considering the currently rather small load on the server?

Any thoughts and opinions greatly appreciated. If you need more info from me, just let me know and I will provide it ASAP.

Kind regards,

Niklas Petersen

Denmark

[krowczynski]

Hi,

Server sounds good, but verify under = if the server is fully supported by VMware.

Do you want only have one Server in your enviroment, with local storage?

If yes remeber if your server wnt down all your vms will not be available.

If you can put more RAM in the hardware server, you can then put more machines with more RAM onto it.

MCP, VCP

[neglas]

Yes, I want one server only with local storage.

I have a backup server where most of my VMs can be run in case of a failure on the main server. But none of the services running, are so critical, that they cannot handle being down a couple of hours og even a day.

[krowczynski]

>>But there is also the option of going for 15.000 RPM SAS disk

If you can put them into the Server with another controller, would be gog, because SAS is faster than SATA!!

MCP, VCP

[DSTAVERT]

Since this is a single server with all your VMs disk performance will be important. The BBWC is very important for performance.

[beyondvm]

Looks good other than the memory. You are going to have non-uniform memory across the channels of the processor since it is nehalem based, and since you are using channels 1 and 2 your memory will run at 1066. Read this post on my blog for more info on memory for nehalem, it takes some planning but its better to do it at the beginning for sure. (easier to point you there rather than to re-post all of the information again, not trying to spam)

Also, for 10-12VMs SATA will be fine if they are not high load VMs. In my lab at home, I have about 10 running on 2 standalone (do not recommend standalone disks for production however) SATA disks and the performance is acceptable.

---

If you found any of my comments helpful please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

www.beyondvm.com

[Scissor]

Definately get a battery and add at least some cache to your RAID Controller that you can cache your writes. Otherwise disk performance will suck.

[neglas]

How would you suggest I organize my memory?

The 5504 processor only runs at 800 mhz as far is I can tell.

n