Increasing disk space for a Dell R710 with ESXI

Neill_J

Neill_J

Neill_J

Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
109
Location
Stamford, Lincolnshire
Hi

Wondered if anyone can help here…

We have at work a Dell poweredge R710, this is running vmware esxi 4.0 (I think!)
We want to increase the available disk space so we can add more VM's as it is nearly full

It has 8 slots at the front for removable disks, 6 are in use (they are SAS hotplug drives)

When I spoke to Dell they indicated we could use either SAS or SATA (but to not mix them both at the same time)

For a test I removed the 6 SAS drives and put in one 2.5 SATA laptop drive and tried to see if it detected it (no joy as I think vmware install was on the other 6 SAS drives (ie. No OS))

I assume I would need to insert the new SATA disks, re-install Vmware ESXI and then add the new SATA disks as a storage pool?
(I could not try this test as I had data on the SATA 2.5 I needed)

The SATA disks are a lot cheaper (and slower) so we would go with them if I could be sure they are correct for the machine
Any thoughts?

Dell support sent me this link for drives we could use:
http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sn..._id=6990&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd&mfgpid=1824167

If they are just standard SATA 2.5 inch then I think they can be had a lot cheaper at OCUK?

Many thanks, Neill


ps - R710 Specs lifted from Dell site are:

1
R710 SEED UNIT PROGRAM
1
POWEREDGE R710 RACK CHASSIS FOR UP TO 8X
1
INTEL XEON E5540 PROCESSOR (2.53GHZ, 4C,
1
RISER WITH 2 PCIE X8 + 2 PCIE X4 SLOTS
1
R710 EMEA1 SHIP DOCS NO POWER CORD (ENGL
1
PE R710 RACK BEZEL
1
16GB MEMORY FOR 2CPU (8X2GB DUAL RANK UD
1
ADDITIONAL INTEL XEON E5540 PROCESSOR (2
2
73GB SAS 10K 2.5" HD HOT PLUG
4
73GB SAS 10K 2.5" ADDITIONAL HD HOT PLUG
1
SAS 6I/R CONTROLLER DOCUMENTATION - ENGL
1
PERC 6/I RAID CONTROLLER CARD 256MB PCIE
1
16X DVD-ROM DRIVE SATA
1
HIGH OUTPUT REDUNDANT POWER SUPPLY (2 PS
2
RACK POWER CORD
1
EMBEDDED BROADCOM GBE LOM WITH TOE AND I
1
IDRAC6 ENTERPRISE WITH VFLASH 1GB SD CAR
1
NO OPERATING SYSTEM
1
PE R710 ELECTRONIC SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION
1
SLIDING READY RACK RAILS WITH CABLE MANA
1
C8 MSS R1/R5 FOR PERC 6I/H700, MIN. 2+3
1
POWEREDGE ORDER - UNITED KINGDOM
1
POWEREDGE SEED UNIT
1
BASE WARRANTY
1
1YR BASIC WARRANTY - NEXT BUSINESS DAY -
1
3YR PROSUPPORT AND 4HR MISSION CRITICAL
1
FREE FREIGHT PER UNIT RACK
 
you can either

As said before add 2 more disk of the same type/size (2*73GB SAS 10K 2.5")

or you will need to by larger capacity SAS drive 300GB for example or the slower SATA drives...

How much space do you need? and how many VM are you going to run on the server

I take it this is the only ESXI server?

GJUK
 
What raid level are you wanting? What i've done in the past is replace 10k sas drives of 300gb with 10k 900gb sas drives, and then a bit of jiggery pokery to expand the partitions. This was in a 5 disk raid 5 array under windows. But had to do one disk at a time or else i'd have lost the array.

People will say this is risky as as the array is rebuilding if a disk failed i'd have lost everything, but a good backup, and crossing fingers worked.

whats the server load like? I've used normal sata disks in an enterprise situation, and wouldn't do it again, the enterprise disks have better MTBF and also different firmware which makes them more suitable for a raid situation.
 
Some models / firmware combination of Dell PERC controllers won't recognise non "Dell" HDs. I don't remember which but Google should turn up the results.
 
Neill_J said:
Hi

Wondered if anyone can help here…

We have at work a Dell poweredge R710, this is running vmware esxi 4.0 (I think!)
We want to increase the available disk space so we can add more VM's as it is nearly full

It has 8 slots at the front for removable disks, 6 are in use (they are SAS hotplug drives)

When I spoke to Dell they indicated we could use either SAS or SATA (but to not mix them both at the same time)

For a test I removed the 6 SAS drives and put in one 2.5 SATA laptop drive and tried to see if it detected it (no joy as I think vmware install was on the other 6 SAS drives (ie. No OS))

I assume I would need to insert the new SATA disks, re-install Vmware ESXI and then add the new SATA disks as a storage pool?
(I could not try this test as I had data on the SATA 2.5 I needed)

The SATA disks are a lot cheaper (and slower) so we would go with them if I could be sure they are correct for the machine
Any thoughts?

Dell support sent me this link for drives we could use:
http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sn..._id=6990&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd&mfgpid=1824167

If they are just standard SATA 2.5 inch then I think they can be had a lot cheaper at OCUK?

Many thanks, Neill


ps - R710 Specs lifted from Dell site are:

Lots of spec details.
Click to expand...

Drives from server / PC companies like Dell / HP / IBM are usually a fair bit more expensive as they work in the maintenance price as well as the initial purchase price. If you do not purchase from Dell then you may want to consider what warranties you may be invalidating as Dell most likely will not support any disk failures with non-Dell disks and may also decide to get a bit funny with you putting non-Dell approved products in to Dell hardware (however stupid it may seem).

A few questions;

  • What version of ESXi are you running and what license have you purchased (ESXi 4/4.1/5 - Essentials/Standard/Enterprise etc).
  • What is your current configuration - array(s) and types (i.e. Raid 1 array for OS, Raid 5 or 10 for datastore).
  • What is the current load for your disk subsystem.
  • What is your projected space requirements for, as an example, now/6months/1 year.
  • What warranty/service contract do you have with Dell and how will it be affected if you put non-Dell disks in the server.
The first two are pretty fundamental. You need to know what you have and how it is configured before trying to improve it or you are are likely to find yourself up the proverbial creak.

The third is aimed at trying to assess the impact of moving to slower disks. If you are under high load on your disks currently then it is potentially only going to get worse if you get slower disks.

The fourth it aimed at trying to get some capacity management planning in so as to avoid ending up having to ask the same question again in 6 months time due to under estimating requirements or avoiding costs in purchasing disks that are larger than you are likely to require.

The last one is trying to assess the impact of going for cheaper / other supplier disks on the service contract you may have. I am sure you would rather avoid the Dell engineer refusing to service the broken down server because it has Seagate SATA disks rather than Dell branded disks in it. It may not affect the warranty / service but it is worth checking.

dLockers said:
Get a cheap HP micro server (G7 or something) and make it into a NAS?
Click to expand...

A few concerns

  • What would to the VMs hosted on it if the mini server went down.
  • What if the switch it was connected to went down.
  • What if the network cable failed or was mistakenly unplugged.
  • Over a GbE conection you are looking at 125MB/s max which is around the speed of a fast SATA drive let alone a SAS drive.
These can be at least partly covered by installing a second network card and having two separate routes and possible LACP to create a bigger pipe although this means you would potentially need a bigger pipe at the other end so more network ports or an addon card utilised for this NAS connection. I cant see this as being a cheap option when you consider redundancy and throughput potential requirements.

Another point worth considering

  • Why double up on cpu, motherboard, IO subsystem and so increasing risk of failure when there are two drive slots free on the original server.
The easiest solution given the details shared so far is to bang in a couple more SAS drives (of appropriate size), raid 1, add to datastore pool in ESXi, job done. For a best solution we really would need more info.

RB
 
Hi All

Sorry for slow reply (2 very young kids!) and thanks for all the input so far
I don't know a great deal about vmware to be honest and am under pressure from above for a quick fix for lack of space (normal routine day then :).

the server is a customers which was given to us for support for them
it is not a critical customer facing server so speed/reliability are not major factors. Warranty on the server ended about 2-3 months ago

Vmware install is (from configuration | licensed features):
Product: ESXi 4 Single Server Licensed for 2 physical CPUs (1-6 cores per CPU)

I have no idea what RAID level it is running and what current disk load is
In the main it is not heavily taxed
A quick look via vpshere client to the performance tab (disks) show very little usage - peaks to 10000KBPS but mostly idle around 1000KBPS

I think the best option is to get 2 additional SAS drives and use the empty bays and add these to the datastore
But - does anyone know for sure if SATA disks are an option for these server types? before we rule that out and also bearing in mind the low usage this kit has (performance not being a major issue)

Thanks, Neill
 
SATA disks will work but won't handle high IOPS as well as SAS. This means you have to really create a separate datastore for these and think carefully about what VDIs you put on it.

What I'd be thinking about is is this the last time you'll need to expand? adding drives fixes the immediate problem, but if your data continues to grow and you end up needing more again soon, network storage is a better option as it's lots more scalable. But you DO really need to think about how you set it up, ensuring everything is resilient and you have the throughput. I.e Separate NICs, separate switches, array resiliency, MPIO for throughput if needed. I've got a NexentaStor box which is pretty good at providing resilient storage over the network. But mine's just a lab really so a bunch of slow Sata drives is fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom