On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 7:47 AM, Tanstaafl <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > Ok, here's my dilemma... > > I have some new Dell R515 servers (12 bay versions). These do not have any > Dell supported internal SD (or CF) card options for the hypervisor, but they > do have an internal 2.5" dual SATA/SAS drive cage, for running a bootable OS > (in my case the ESXi hypervisor)... > > Well, I really hate the idea of wasting money and disk space (for 2 146GB > SAS drives to be run in a mirror, what is being recommended to me) on > something that only requires about 32MB to install (the hypervisor) when > apparently there is a really cool option like: > > for CF cards: > http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2sahdcf.php > > or > > for SD cards: > http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2sahdcf.php > > I could get 2 of these for each server, each with a mirrored pair of CF (or > SD) cards (mirror mode is defined by a jumper or switch on the adapter), > then mirror those (in the BIOS), which would result in a total of FOUR CF > (or SD) redundant cards (a mirror of 2 mirrored pairs) for the hypervisor... > and I can do this for quite a bit less than even a SINGLE 146GB SAS drive... > > Is there any reason NOT to do this? > > What am I missing (other than the fact that Dell won't support this config, > but I'm not using them for software support anyway)? > > Appreciate any/all comments...
I'd say give it a shot on something non-critical, see if it works. The big thing I'd be uncertain of is bootup time for the Addonics adapter...how long before it tells the SATA controller it's ready? Incidentally, I think that adapter is brilliant. I might snag one in a few months and set up the Gentoo live DVD as a read-only boot install. -- :wq
