Increasing disk space for a Dell R710 with ESXI

[Neill_J]

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

 

[Neill_J]

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