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ferexderta
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

vsan 7 install

I am interested in vsan technology. I have 3 physical servers and I want to install and learn vcenter 7 and vsan 7 advanced licenses. How to install vsan? Will vcenter be activated after installing it or installed with a different iso ? Which model or design can be installed on 3 physical servers according to the advanced license. Do I need to make raid 5 or raid6 disks from ilo server on physical machine before installing ESXi for vsan? How many datastores and what size should I use in vsan? What would be the best configuration of this? How can I learn what to do starting from the physical server settings for the installation?

thanks for helping

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IRIX201110141
Champion
Champion

One vSAN Datastore per cluster.... not more and the size will the sum of you of your capacity disks.

Based on erasure encoding you can archive something like RAID5/6 but you need 4 or more hosts and proper licensing. With just 3 nodes you can use a policy up to FTT=1 which is like a RAID1.

Your phys. Hosts needs a simple and plain passtrough HBA because vSAN will like to have direct access to the disk.

You can setup vCenter first on a single disk vmfs datastore and after setting up the vSAN you can migrate from that single disk onto the vSAN.

Regards,
Joerg

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Ali16
Contributor
Contributor

.

 

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ferexderta
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

- Your phys. Hosts needs a simple and plain passtrough HBA because vSAN will like to have direct access to the disk

You suggest me to connect the servers directly. won't I connect via physical switch

 

- You can setup vCenter first on a single disk vmfs datastore and after setting up the vSAN you can migrate from that single disk onto the vSAN.

I could not understand this installation pattern. all disks on servers will be used for ssd and only sata disk for ESXi install ?

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IRIX201110141
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I dont talk about how to connect your Hosts to your pSwitches.  I talk about that you dont have to create local Raids trough your ILO because thats what you have ask for. Your Host needs a propper HBA and not a full blown RAID Card[1] with Cache and Battery because the vSAN module within the ESXi would like to have direct access to each single pDisk to group them together to a Diskgroup. Each Host will at least one Diskgroup. So again No HW Raid, no Hotspare.

 

I havent talk about SSD or SATA disk. You have ask in which order you have to install vSAN and the answer have to be like

  1. the first ESXi
  2. vCenter on the first ESXi and placed it temporarily
  3. your other ESXi will join the Cluster
  4. use the vSAN install options within vCenter to create the vSAN
  5. move vCenter VCSA onto vSAN or leave it where it is
    5.a you can add the temporary disk where vCenter was located on into a Diskgroup of that Host

Believe me....after you finished the setup and have it working you have all answers 😉

[1] The latest RAID Controller can be switched from RAID into Passtrough mode. Otherwise and when its only a Test environment and you are unable to provide a propper HBA you can create multiple RAID0 of every single Disk you would like to use for vSAN later.

Regards,
Joerg

 

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ferexderta
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I'm wondering about this. Before starting the ESXi and vcenter installation, will I make any configurations to the local disks on the physical server for vsan? If there is no raid configuration, I will determine a disk only for ESXi and install only that disk ESXi without doing anything?

Will I create any raid structure for vsan before starting Esxi and vcenter installations on the physical server?

In classical architecture, I was adding 3-4 datastores of 5 tb or 10 tb from any storage. Now if I use vsan will I show the total disk size to ESXi hosts as a single datastore. 

For example, after vsan installation, the total local disk size is 30 TB. Will there be only 30 tb datastore on vcenter? or should we add them as 3X10 tb

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IRIX201110141
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Normaly the ppl use a RAID1 for the ESXi OS it self... if its just for testing a USB/SD Card or Single pDisk would be enough. Please take notice that ESX 7.02 and up have problems with USB/SD which where fixed later but go "deprecated" in the same step. Also USB/SD like installation never was supportet when Host have 512GB or more memory for vSAN installation.

At the end you will get a 30TB Datastore for the VMs. Alls disks which are claimed for vSAN in the Hosts going into a large vSAN Datastore.

I suggest to check if your HW is vSAN certified or at least "near" that state when it comes to the HBA, Flash/SSD.

Regards,
Joerg

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