ESXi RAIDs

[wdroush]

So I'm at a bit of a delema. I want a high-availability system (err, close to)...

Currently we have one machine, I can get a second one, however we can't drop $2k on vCenter to give live vmachine transfers when they die (true high-availability).

What I wanted to do was run a RAID, I'm iffy about hardware RAIDs being as if hardware goes bad, I need to go hunt down a similar card or the data on the drives are useless. Software raids are great, but are only available at the VM level, meaning if the OS drive dies, ESXi will no longer boot. And I can only manage the RAIDs at boot time when the hardware fires up.

I was going to set up our virtual servers with virtual RAIDS across 2 drives so they could obtain the extra speed and data security, but isn't this practically just as good as backing up the VM nightly (minus losing a few hours of work), this also makes it a 50% gamble that it's either the OS drive of the 2nd drive in the RAID.

Anyway, being as I'm new, what are my options for keeping a cost effective setup for a small office with simple backup and quick restore time after a catastrophic failure?

Going to be an older Poweredge 1435SC with a 120GB setup (main) and 1TB (storage) drive. I have additional external backup storage.

Not having 100% uptime is fine, but I'm looking to cut complexity and downtime as much as possible when the OS drive fails, and that if RAIDing at the VM level is even worth the time. Should I just keep backups of the VM drives that are important? (we got some that are volitle, and I don't have 1.1TB of backup storage, so I need to pick what to keep and what to chuck) and keep them all one single hard drive on the OS level, and when things die I just reinstall ESXi and restore the virtual machines?

Does VMWare have some backup software that I can connect to ESXi and basically migrate them to a backup drive nightly?

Should I just throw up my arms and say "It will be fine!" and run with a hardware RAID? Am I too worried about hardware failure? Has hardware RAIDs become more standard in how they're setup so I can transfer to another machine easily?

I'd have to power off the machine to swap drives anyway, being as they don't have hot swap bays. >>

[RParker · Accepted solution]

Yes, you are being way too dramatic about hardware. Hardware RAID is your BEST option hands down. Drive fails, using RAID 5 you can have 1 drive fail, and data is retained, no downtime. RAID 6 you can do this with 2 drives. Basic difference is performance, but I haven't seen much of a difference, if any, in performance. so if you are paranoid go with RAID 6.

Besdies RAID isnt going to save your VM's, it's only going to mean you can keep running in the event of hardware failure, your VM's are still subject to corruption, user misconfigration, and data deletion within the VM OS, so RAID is only part of the picture.

If you can't drop $2K on VC, then you won't be able to buy backup either. ALL backup solutions cost something, and depending on how many you have, it could cost a bundle. Now you could use esXpress if you weren't on ESXi... esXpress won't run on ESXi, but it will run on the console version.

So I would say make a case for VC and make someone accountable for buying VC, you need it. You already see the benefit.. so fight for it. It's less than $150.00 a month (if you do this for 2010 budget)... but ROI is HUGE in less time. So for you VC will save you from hardware problems and VM management. Of course that vmotion is assuming you have central SAN solution.

[wdroush]

Well the issue wasn't with hard drive failure, but with RAID card failure, if the card goes, I need to go hunt down a similar model. I wouldn't have an issue if there was a standard and all RAID cards were interchangable, but they're not... but I do figure a drive will fail 10x before a RAID card does... I'll take your advice and go with the hardware RAID, worse comes to worse we'll still have manual and OS level backups.

Well I figured if VC costs $2k, a backup setup must cost ~$1k, we could do that if it will give us constant snapshots for our machines. Just dropping $2k for basically only using vmotion and high availability isn't worth it, we don't need high availability tjesshat bad, however backup for our critical data we DO need. To be honest this isn't required, a copy of the OS drive will give us a starting point, and nightly backups on the VM level for all data not stored on the OS drive should work fine.

Eventually we'll look into getting VC, but until then I was hoping there was a backup only version of software for VMware for purchase.

[Troy_Clavell]

Eventually we'll look into getting VC, but until then I was hoping there was a backup only version of software for VMware for purchase.

</div>You may want to take a look at ghettoVCB.sh - Free alternative for backing up VM's for ESX(i) 3.5 and 4.0, plus, it's free!

[wdroush]

Nice! I was thinking of something similar, but I thought with ESXi 4.0 not supporting console access that scripting a backup solution that wasn't part of VMWare's infrastructure would be impossible.