Create Shared disk for VM's

[pradeepraul]

Hi Guys

I am very new to VMWare. I have got ESX server 3.5 installed. Got 2 data stores which are SCSI disks. 1 I am using for the ESX OS and the other for VMs and data. I want to create a disk which will be available to 2 VMs. The purpose is to have a shared disk for exchange cluster. Can somebody advise me how to go about this.

Thanks

Pradeep

[kjb007]

Here is a step-by-step guide for Microsoft Cluster Service install. This should have all the info you need to create a shared disk, and how to setup your SCSI controllers as well.

-KjB

[atbnet]

You could use a SAN (fibre or iSCSI) for the shared storage.

Then create a LUN and assign it to both your ESX servers then assign it to the MSCS VMs as an raw disk mapping (RDM).

http://www.vmadmin.co.uk/index.php/resources/35-esxserver/58-rdmvm

Andy, VMware Certified Professional (VCP),

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[pradeepraul]

HI

The first answer has got no link. I do not have SAN and the storage is local to my only esx server. Thats the reason I get the option 'Raw Device Mapping' disabled.

Anything else shall I try?

Cheers

Pradeep

[kjb007]

Sorry about that, here it is:

-KjB

[Lightbulb · Accepted solution]

I use this link whenever I need to do this.

http://exchangeexchange.com/blogs/bkeane/archive/2007/07/30/mscs-clustering-in-vmware.aspx

[kjb007]

For exchange/db type of shared disk, I wouldn't create a thick formatted disk, and instead use eagerzeroedthick, so you don't have the additional overhead of allocating/emptying space as you're trying to write the data and you have a clean disk to start with, but the remainder of the how-to is pretty good. Everyone likes screenshots. :smileyblush:

-KjB

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

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