Question on Datastores in 5- Best practice

[macpiano]

I have a couple standalone esxi hosts that have no SAN. I will have about 4 TB on one and 6 TB on the other host. I know I can create one large datastore and just have one VD on the raid. I normally carve up the Raid into 2 TB partitions since esxi 4 could only do 2 TB anyways. Its probably not going to affect the raid or the drives because it is using them all anyways. I know my Dell SAN installer says he sees mostly 1 TB datastores in his installations.

What would be a good practice(s)?

thanks

[Samcer]

Hi,

from the main array I would create a partition of 10-15 GB foe ESX/ESXi installation (even if you could use an USB/SSD storage). Then I would suggest you 2 ways:

- create partitions using the remaining array size (I would suggest 2TB, see Dell best practices);

- create a 2nd partitions for (50-100 GB) for a special purpose VM. Use the remaining array size for other partitions.

The special VM should be a Linux/Opensolaris  VM with an OS disk (vmdk) and 1 or 2 RDMs to local partitions. (You should have 1 special VM per host).

Use LVM in the guest OS to "merge" the raw disks, and leverage a File system which can replicate storage across boxes (ZFS or GFS). Present the storage as NFS to your host.

Note:

- Consider to use 2 Nics (1 per server) and a cross cable for replication;

- RDM to local disks is not supported but you may see: http://vinfrastructure.it/en/2011/11/esxi-dischi-rdm-con-storage-sas-locale-o-non/

I hope you get my picture, it is not a best practice but is "cool"

[macpiano]

Well that is interesting and I do have an internal SD that I installed ESXi on and I boot from that.

thanks

[Samcer]

Good, if you are going to license your ESXi, you may consider to use VMware vSphere Virtual Storage Appliance:

http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/vsphere-storage-appliance/overview....

Double check your internal SD size (suggested > 4 GB)

Let us know

Sam

[macpiano]

I'm using 8 gig SD cards but esxi 5 is set not to write much to it because of the limited writes on SD cards. Dell still only sells 2 gig sd cards with their vm server setups. I have looked at the storage appliance but I have a couple questions. We have ESXi standard licensing so that is included.

1. They recommend 8 drives but my R710s have only 6 drives.

2. It is my understanding that you can't put VMs on the storage applicance.

3. I think I need more info on this.

[Samcer]

With the Standard Edition vCenter Virtual Appliance is included, while vSphere Storage Appliance has to be purchased apart.

As you said 8 disks is a recommendation, since you pay for the software the more storage you have the more you are saving (cost per GB)

Once VSA is up and running you will create your VM in a NFS datastore, which is offered by VSA

As said before vCenter Server Virtual Appliance (VCSA/VCVA) is not vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA)