VSAN Design - Adding 2nd Disk Group vs 4th Host

[ArchFan08]

Assume you have a 3 host hybrid VSAN cluster where each host has a single disk group. If cost were an issue and you could either add a second disk group or add a 4th host to the existing cluster, which would you do? Assume that the total number of HDD per host is 6 regardless of number of disk groups (1 disk group w/ 6 HDD or 2 disk groups w/ 3 HDD each).

[zdickinson]

Good morning, I would add a 4th host.  1.)It will allow you to lose a host and rebuild.  2.)It keeps all the hosts the same, best practice.  Thank you, Zach.

[JohnNicholsonVM · Accepted solution]

4th host.

In all flash this will unlock RAID 5 as an option , in RAID 1 mirroring this allows rebuild in place on a host loss.

Note if cost is a concern and your growing ONLY for storage capacity single socket servers can cut some costs in half.