Initial setup for Cheap server

[Diddoo]

Hi all,

needing to setup a data storage machine, and have a few questions.

planning on the following

ESXi 3.5 or 4.0 installed to a single local drive

2 VM;s running on a mirrored SATA Drive (windows xp or 7 and Ubuntu server) i can separate these out to individual drives if needed

Data Storage = 1 RAID 10 array (all 1TB SATA drives)

The machine itself is a 64 bit Athlon 3500 whitebox that has become available.

Will this work? Drives have to be SATA as SCSI/SAS is just not currently possible.

I need both the VM's to be able to access the Data store( or should i split into 2 separate Raid1 discs, 1 for each VM?)

I read something about SATA drives not being able to be used in shared mode. i don't really understand what this means?

My main query is, Will ESXi support the SATA RAID systems i have planned or am i better installing Ubuntu server as the OS and running VMserver for the windows VM.

[DSTAVERT]

ESXi is a server based OS. It has limited support for desktop type computers. Unless you have a hardware based raid controller (desktop controllers almost never are) you will not be able to do RAID. You may or not have luck installing ESXi. I would check the Hardware Compatibility list for officially supported hardware and http://vm-help.com for community supported hardware.

[Diddoo]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah i'm planning on a cheap banded server a little down the track. Not possible right now though.

I have an adaptec 2405 raid controller card that is on the Compatibility list. So i think I am ok from a hardware point

I was more interested to know if my plans for a shared RAID 10 data store work with SATA and ESXi.

i'll do some more searching as i need to make sure that the SATA RAID will be ok before i commit to this.

this is on the Compatibility page:

NOTE: IDE RAID and SATA RAID are not supported for the VMFS file system.

is the VMFS used on drives for the guest os AND the DATA stores? IF data stores i think this puts a stop to my plans above.

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

Software RAID is not supported. Hardware RAID controllers like the 2405 will work just fine. The 2405 can handle SAS drives as well. VMFS is the ESXi file system so you are OK.

[DSTAVERT]

Create your RAID 10 array. Install ESXi and it should create a datastore from the remaining space. When you create a virtual machine the ESXi client will create virtual disks within that datastore.

Go through these. They will help with understanding the process.

http://www.vmware.com/go/vspherequickstart1

http://www.vmware.com/a/webcasts/details/201

[Diddoo]

Thanks all for the answers.

i've stup ESXi once before but only on a single drive system.

in my planned system the raid 10 is just for storage.

esxi has its own small drive to boot.

the VM's themselves will be on there own drives

the raid array for critical storage. (website backup and archives)

thanks again..