Hi all,
I am hoping you guys will be able to help me out here; I am going to be adding 3 new hard disks to an ESX4.0 server and need some advice:
Server – Dell T610 with a PERC6/i
Current Disks - Connector 0:
Physical disks 0 – 2 = 418.62GB (3x 450GB 15k SAS - ST3450857SS)
Physical disk 3 = 558.38GB (1x 600GB 15k SAS - ST3600057SS)
Connector 1:
Physical disk 4 = 558.38GB (1x 600GB 15k SAS - ST3600057SS)
Virtual Disks:
Disk 0: RAID5 – Made up of the first 3 Physical disks of 450GB to make a volume of 837.25GB
Disk 1: RAID1 – Made up of Physical disks 3 and 4 of 600GB to make a volume of 558.38GB
Datastores – LocalStorage1 836GB (Disk 0) – free space = 42.08GB
LocalStorage2 558GB (Disk 1) – free space = 97.3GB
Servers – DCFPS-01 – all data on LS1
EXCH-01 – data on both LS1 and LS2
MGMT-01 – all data on LS1
SQL-01 – all data on LS2
TS-01 – all data on LS1
So, the issue is clearly disk space and is set to grow rather rapidly over the next few months. I have just bought 3 new 600GB 15k SAS disks that I intended on adding into the current RAID1 array, not realising at the time that I can’t add more disks to a RAID1 without losing all the data so I have two options.
1) Add these into the existing RAID5 array (600GB disks now become 450GB as they have to be the same size as the current), resulting in a 2093GB Virtual disk, providing a 1257GB Increase.
2) Create a new RAID5 array with these 3 new disks resulting in a new Virtual disk and a new Datastore, Right? providing a 1116GB store.
I would like some advice on the options I have and which ones are best. I will ensure a full backup is made of all VM’s to tape before any work is started but I really do hope this should not be needed, we need the minimal amount of downtime.
Any help will be appreciated.
Regards
I am hoping you guys will be able to help me out here; I am going to be adding 3 new hard disks to an ESX4.0 server and need some advice:
Server – Dell T610 with a PERC6/i
Current Disks - Connector 0:
Physical disks 0 – 2 = 418.62GB (3x 450GB 15k SAS - ST3450857SS)
Physical disk 3 = 558.38GB (1x 600GB 15k SAS - ST3600057SS)
Connector 1:
Physical disk 4 = 558.38GB (1x 600GB 15k SAS - ST3600057SS)
Virtual Disks:
Disk 0: RAID5 – Made up of the first 3 Physical disks of 450GB to make a volume of 837.25GB
Disk 1: RAID1 – Made up of Physical disks 3 and 4 of 600GB to make a volume of 558.38GB
Datastores – LocalStorage1 836GB (Disk 0) – free space = 42.08GB
LocalStorage2 558GB (Disk 1) – free space = 97.3GB
Servers – DCFPS-01 – all data on LS1
EXCH-01 – data on both LS1 and LS2
MGMT-01 – all data on LS1
SQL-01 – all data on LS2
TS-01 – all data on LS1
So, the issue is clearly disk space and is set to grow rather rapidly over the next few months. I have just bought 3 new 600GB 15k SAS disks that I intended on adding into the current RAID1 array, not realising at the time that I can’t add more disks to a RAID1 without losing all the data so I have two options.
1) Add these into the existing RAID5 array (600GB disks now become 450GB as they have to be the same size as the current), resulting in a 2093GB Virtual disk, providing a 1257GB Increase.
2) Create a new RAID5 array with these 3 new disks resulting in a new Virtual disk and a new Datastore, Right? providing a 1116GB store.
I would like some advice on the options I have and which ones are best. I will ensure a full backup is made of all VM’s to tape before any work is started but I really do hope this should not be needed, we need the minimal amount of downtime.
Any help will be appreciated.
Regards