Specific question about using ESX with RAID set-up

DJMK4 · 30 Dec 2016 at 08:55

Hi all,

I am thinking about purchasing a Dell Poweredge T20, this is to upgrade my current small form ESX host at home *running in non-disk RAID set-up* to an ESX host on the T20 running with 2 x 2TB disks.

From what I understand, ESX does not support software RAID, so thats my Dell PE T20 built in RAID out of the question, am I going to need to purchase a RAID hardware card? and whats the cheapest option ? (if there is one) I dont want to have to fork out loads to be able to achieve a simple RAID set-up with two disks.

Any help appreciated, many thanks

edscdk · 30 Dec 2016 at 09:11

Someone was selling a Dell perc on mm the other day for 50 or 60.. Do you really need raid? Backup the vmdk to the other drive?

DJMK4 · 30 Dec 2016 at 09:40

I guess its not a necessity, I could indeed backup vmdk's to the second drive.

If needed I could later look at adding a card in.

SupraWez · 30 Dec 2016 at 11:36

Dell Perc or HP P410 controllers should do the trick, I use the latter myself but make sure you get one with battery backed up cache if performance is a concern.

Not used any Dell controllers for a long time but with the HP kit you will need to install the HP addon bundles if you want to manage them from ESX, unless you try the HP prepared installation media.

DJMK4 · 30 Dec 2016 at 11:42

Im not really concerned too much about performance, this will be for a lab box only really.

Aslong as its functional and usable and not too much of a performance impact,

Im seeing the cost of a HP P410 from around £27 to £47 if im looking at the correct one.

Or if going for a Dell Perc, would something like a Dell PERC 6i PCIE SAS RAID Controller T774H around £25-£30 do?

SupraWez · 30 Dec 2016 at 12:06

Cant comment on the Perc controllers as I have not used them for a long time.

I use the HP P410i with battery backup, you will also need two 4 into 1 spider cables.

jfish · 4 Jan 2017 at 09:28

Do you really need RAID if its a simple lab setup - as mentioned backup the VM's

Install the hypervisor on one disk, then create 1 data store on the first disk, extend the data store using the free space on the second disk - essentially spreading a single data store across 2 disks

DJMK4 · 4 Jan 2017 at 13:40

Yeh im looking to go down that route rather than ESX on RAID, it will let me focus more on what I am labbing at the moment.

SupraWez · 4 Jan 2017 at 13:56

jfish said:
Install the hypervisor on one disk, then create 1 data store on the first disk, extend the data store using the free space on the second disk - essentially spreading a single data store across 2 disks

Pros / Cons of spreading the datastore instead of creating a second on the other disk?

Sp00n · 4 Jan 2017 at 15:26

You can create file systems that are bigger than the size of one of the disks.

SupraWez · 4 Jan 2017 at 15:43

Sp00n said:
You can create file systems that are bigger than the size of one of the disks.

What happens to the datastore if one of the disk fails?

Hellsmk2 · 5 Jan 2017 at 13:55

You're buggered....

SupraWez · 5 Jan 2017 at 13:58

Hellsmk2 said:
You're buggered....

Indeed

DJMK4 · 5 Jan 2017 at 20:19

Yeh I wouldn't want to extend the datastore to the second disk, it could lead to issues. I would rather have them as 2 x Seperate datastores

I cant see me needing anymore than 2 x 2TB Western Digital RED disks for datastore1 and 2 at this point

faxfan · 5 Jan 2017 at 21:28

The key is to make sure the raid controller has a driver in ESXI, Adaptec cards are well supported in ESXI and quite cheap (performance isn't great).

I managed to pickup an LSI card on the forest which was Fujitsu branded but the actual raid chip was supported it works fine, the card was £70 with LSI cards with the same chip going for £700 so worth exploring that if you can. EDIT if you look now, you maybe in luck

Caged · 5 Jan 2017 at 21:44

If you're labbing and using VMUG licensing for the extended duration evaluations then you can use vCenter Replication to mirror the contents of one datastore to the other.

avi8 · 25 Feb 2017 at 09:54

faxfan said:
The key is to make sure the raid controller has a driver in ESXI, Adaptec cards are well supported in ESXI and quite cheap (performance isn't great).

I managed to pickup an LSI card on the forest which was Fujitsu branded but the actual raid chip was supported it works fine, the card was £70 with LSI cards with the same chip going for £700 so worth exploring that if you can. EDIT if you look now, you maybe in luck

Hi

do you have the model number of the card you purchased ?