Help! - WDRED 3tb 0.0b -128

Little_Crow said:
Yes you can upgrade to v10 Hardware, but you then can't manage the server after that, except using the web client, which is only available as part of vCenter and it isn't free.
(Apparently you can bodge it and use VMWare Workstation 10 to do it though).

So for a home user with no vCenter server, once a server is upgraded to v10 you can no longer add disks, memory, CPU's etc. That'll learn you to use their free stuff for free, you swines!
By extension, anyone who does have a virtual vcenter server (as we do), can't upgrade it to hardware v10 as you'll then never be able to add CPU or memory, or anything else that requires the server to be shutdown.

Honestly, they've really lost the plot on this one. All the previous unpopular changes to licensing they've made over the years have at least been driven by making more money, this is to force people into adopting the webclient.
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Ah yes *reverts snapshot* that is sneaky.
 
According to my local reseller the v10 change is VERY unpopular with customers. If only because the web client is still slow, clunky and unresponsive in comparison with the GUI.
 
covenantuk said:
According to my local reseller the v10 change is VERY unpopular with customers. If only because the web client is still slow, clunky and unresponsive in comparison with the GUI.
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Funny that so many things that VMware do are unpopular with customers. They have an amazing core product, and then constantly let themselves down with everything else they do. It is painful to watch, and even more painful to be immersed in.
 
Hey guys,

So I got so fed up with this last week I literally ran to a different country (..Barcelona was lovey, thanks for asking).

But, I'm back now and today have started looking into Esxi 5.5 as you've advised..

I've upgraded ESXi + vSphere but am holding fire on updating the Virtual Hardware until I know I can manage it (stupid Web Client)..

So more on that.. I have some questions.. Ive never used vCenter before so Im complete noob to that side of it..

Firstly: My understanding is vCenter is basically just a place to combine numerous ESXi's into one so when someone loads vSphere they can see them all, correct?.

Secondly: Can this only be installed onto Windows Server? (crashed trying to quickly put it on win7 machine)

Third: Once installed, Does it always need to be running? For instance.. If I were to install it onto a VM on a standalone pc, can I just fire up that VM+vCenter when I need to use its features or vSphere etc? - Or does it need to be running 24x7?

Think thats it for the time being! Thankyou!
 
1. Sort of, yes. There's much more to it but to start with you can create little clusters of things, such as hosts, and benefit from various additional features you'll then be exposed to (like vMotion, DRS, etc).

2. You can install it on Windows Server, and that's been a pretty good way to go until recently. vSphere 5.5 introduces a greatly improved vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) which you deploy from an OVF available from the VMware site. This provides a nice simple all-in-one way to get up and running with vCenter Server and I'd recommend you go down that road rather than using Windows Server. I've just done this myself (migrated from a Windows 2012 vCenter Server to the new VCSA) and I'm very impressed. The web client is almost as good as the desktop client now and the installation process (including Active Directory integration) was a breeze.

3. You should keep your vCenter Server running while the hosts it's managing are running. I'm not sure how much functionality (vMotion, HA, etc) is temporarily lost while vCenter Server is not running (I think, from a discussion we had on here a while back, it's not as bad as I first thought).

If you only have one host then I wouldn't bother with vCenter Server. You would gain features, but chances are if you only have one host then they aren't the kind of features you'd be interested in anyway.
 
Shad said:
If you only have one host then I wouldn't bother with vCenter Server. You would gain features, but chances are if you only have one host then they aren't the kind of features you'd be interested in anyway.
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Thanks for the info Shad. Yes, Ive only a single host at home.. The only reason I'm having to go down this route of vCenter (to get Web Client) is to try and find a resolution to my 3tb drive issues.. of which I have an update..

So, built a quick standard Win7 64bit VM inside 5.5 on HW 9 first of all and attached both Mapped Raw Lun's from the 3TB drives to it. Once in windows/disk management it shows the same issues as before.. so 5.5 alone isn't enough..

Then shut the VM down and updated it to HW 10.. Fired it back up.. annnnddddd..... Still the same :( .

So from that, I can assume the results will be the same If i were to do it to the server.

This also 100% confirms its a problem with Esxi/vSphere as they work fine on a standalone Win7 PC.

MotherHuggers.

Any other suggestions?

:Going to test whether I can now create a single 3TB vmdx on the discs without updating the HW to v10....
 
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ChocolateStarfishRammer said:
:Going to test whether I can now create a single 3TB vmdx on the discs without updating the HW to v10....
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Oook..

So, Created Datastores on both drives and lo and behold.. it allows me to create 3TB (2.71) .vmdx files on them without upgrading the HW to v10.

Booted the Server up and it seems them (yey!) and doesn't show any of the errors or "0b" issues as before.

I'm currently formatting them both in a Mirrored setup.. Will test write/read speeds once done! Just hope that I don't much of a performance hit for doing it this way!
 
ChocolateStarfishRammer said:
Will test write/read speeds once done! Just hope that I don't much of a performance hit for doing it this way!
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Right then.

Firstly, Im happy :) Its finally working!

So testing speeds (after some faffing in the Registry)..

Network Write:

13GB Various Files = 95MB/s avg
13GB Single File = 105MB/s avg

Network Read:

13GB Various Files = 70MB/s avg
13GB Single File = 70MB/s avg

Im happy with that, its actually marginally better then I was getting previously so thats good!

..Might look into that Network Read rate tho, seems a little low.. But for the time being I've got TB's of data to get back on it so away we go!

Thanks for your help everyone :)
 
ChocolateStarfishRammer said:
I did wonder if it were a hiccup as such..

When I was creating the datastores it clearly said in there "Max file size: 2TB".. But it let me do it so hey ho no complaints here!
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Very strange. Hopefully you don't run into corruption or anything like that once you write past the 2 TB mark? Seems very strange that the published guidelines would say one thing, to the point where the GUI reflects that, and yet it would allow you to create them.

If you have the time and the inclination, use H2testw to completely fill one of the drives (within the VM) -- it is a tool to test USB keys aren't fake (i.e. you paid for a 2 GB USB key but it's really only 128 MB). It will prove that the full 3 TB are writable without corruption.
 
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