I would sway away from raid on a vmdisk personally and use storage failover at the bit level (iscsi appliance type). There is no point in partitioning out a physical drive that I have ever known and is magnified with a vm since your r/w are happening within one large file thats spanned across the raid subsystem. If you are using this for DR I would not raid anything, and separate the vms on physical drives if you have enough space and keep a spare drive in the event of a drive failure. Obviously there are more details to consider than posted.
From: Clayton Doige [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 9:35 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: VMWare Server Disk Config Questions Thanks all for the responses. Bearing in mind that this configuration is being designed as a disaster recovery system, where for that main, the only IO will be incoming Double Take bit level replication, would I be right in saying that if I partition the system so that there is say 30GB for the base OS, and then put everything else on one container I will be better off than my original spec below? Thanks Clayton From: René de Haas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 09 January 2008 13:01 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: VMWare Server Disk Config Questions Since all your Virtual Disks are on the same RAID set I dont see how you avoid problems with heavy disk IO. But this is just my thought and I am not a VMware expert by any means. From: Joseph L. Casale [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 1:49 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: VMWare Server Disk Config Questions My opinion is that if that array degrades, each vm is effected and the rebuild will take forever if its busy. Also, if one vm sees heavy disc IO, the whole system suffers. Not a lot of isolation there jlc From: Clayton Doige [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 4:22 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: VMWare Server Disk Config Questions Dear all, sorry if this is either off topic, or marginally stupid. I am about to spec out a box that will host 3 virtual machines for DR purposes. I wanted to run my thoughts past the list to see where the error in my thought process is, as I am sure there is one (or more) lol. The physical machine will have a RAID 5 set up with 0.5 TB usable space. I plan to partition the array as follows: Container 1, 20 GB, Host OS Container 2, 100GB, VM1 (1 virtual disk for OS, 1 virtual disk for apps/data) Container 3, 200 GB, VM2 (1 virtual disk for OS, 1 virtual disk for apps/data) Container 4, 200 GB, VM3 (1 virtual disk for OS, 1 virtual disk for apps/data) Is there anything glaringly wrong with this set up? TIA Clayton Doige Project Management Consultant Green IT Solutions Ltd [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01277844943 07949255062 www.greenit.co.uk **************************************************************************** Internet communications are not secure and Green IT Solutions Ltd does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this message. Any views or opinions presented within are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Green IT Solutions Ltd. Although Green IT Solutions Ltd operates anti-virus programmes, it does not accept responsibility for any damage whatsoever that is caused by viruses being passed. Telephone communications and replies to this email may be monitored by Green IT Solutions Ltd for operational or training purposes. **************************************************************************** _____ *** The information in this e-mail is confidential and intended solely for the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the sender by return e-mail delete this e-mail and refrain from any disclosure or action based on the information. *** ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
