VMWare storage

[TheAngryDog]

Does anyone here use VMWare on a regular basis?

I currently have a HP Microserver with VMWare ESXi 5.5 installed. It has 3 separate drives in it (2TB, 250GB and 160GB). I am planning on putting another 2-4TB drive in it.

It boots from a 16gb USB pen drive and has 8GB of RAM in it (looking to double this to 16GB, especially if the VM's I install arent capable of running properly).

My main question at the moment is centred around the storage configuration. I plan on running the following VM's;

Windows 8 Enterprise
Windows 2008 R2 x2
Windows 2012 x2

One of them is going to act as a media server, the other 4 will be part of an internal domain. My laptop isn't a Pro or Enterprise version so I will not be connecting it to the network.

How would be best to provision the storage for these VM's? While I work a little with VMWare in my job, I do not get involved in the configuring too much, more so using vSphere to access the VM's and move them onto different hosts.

In this instance I currently on have one host.

Thanks in advance!

[TheAngryDog]

Thanks guys

It's a home lab that I am using this for mainly.

Why ESXi? Its what the customers at my work use hence why I am using it.

I don't have a full licence for 2012, only evaluation ones which last 6 months.

I work In IT but I've never really used RAID. What benefits would I get from it? Would I lose storage space?

Thanks.

[TheAngryDog]

bhstewie said:

TheAngryDog said:

Thanks guys
I work In IT but I've never really used RAID. What benefits would I get from it? Would I lose storage space?

The main benefits are performance, capacity, and resilience in varying combinations depending on the number of drives and the RAID level.

For a lab environment, with a bunch of drives of different sizes, you may be OK without any kind of RAID on the assumption that if you lose a single drive you're happy to lose whatever is on that drive.

There are a ton of tutorials out there but start here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x533qY_Fhk0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6WZr3kw3_o

Single biggest thing with any RAID level (and it's a bit of an IT mantra) is "RAID is not a substitute for backup", RAID is only meant to help protect you from drive failures.

Cheers, I'll take a look at those links!

I have anything important backed up onto an external drive, and then then I have another backup of that. I don't have much important stuff mind.

Yeah I am well aware of that mantra! . I suppose I could buy a few more 2TB drives, rather than one 4TB drive, that way I could look at RAID. Then I could use the other drives in my spare desktop and maybe use that for something. Its a very old desktop that supports SATA but but virtualisation etc.

TonyRPH said:

I don't think VMWare has support for the on board RAID in the micro server (at least it doesn't in mine...).

You'll need a separate RAID control (one that is on VMWare's HCL).

The HP P410i will work and is relatively cheap on Ebay.

You don't say which micro server you have, but IIRC most of them have the same SATA connector which will plug straight into a P410i (bit not a P400).

Then use RAID 6 / 10 / 50 whichever the card you buy will support.

I have a G7 N54L. Thanks I'll take a look.

jjlynn27 said:

Raid 10 or 1 are the realistic options or jbod. If you plan to learn storage and esxi, create freenas/openfiler vm and 're-publish' storage as iscsi/nfs.

What is JBOD? My initial plan is Windows and Networking, to get my knowledge improved. I want a new job as I hate my current one, but most places down my way want you to be able to do x y and z, and given how many people apply for them, I need to have this as well, backed by my work experience and certs.

[TheAngryDog]

bhstewie said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x533qY_Fhk0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6WZr3kw3_o

I've just watched this. The first video seemed more appropriate to my current situation.

I can see the benefits of all types. 0 is ideal for VM's if you have a good backup source, which I could use my desktop pc for, to store backups giving me optimum performance. The downside is that I'd need to do a full restore of everything when a replacement drive is added.

However, Raid 5 gives me the best redundancy, if not best performance, and I'd lose one drive, but if I had 4 2TB drives, that still gives me 6TB, and all I would need to do would be to put a new drive in, let it rebuild and then I am back up and running. I'd still need to take backups mind (could always lose 2 or more drives in one go).

I think Raid 5, if supported, would be the way to go?

[TheAngryDog]

TonyRPH said:

JBOD = just a bunch of disks.

It refers to 'n' disks but not in any kind of RAID array.

• where 'n' is any number of disks.

Cheers, I'd seen that mentioned on one of the above videos .

Vaud said:

Join the VMware user group as well - there are often regional events where you might network into a new job. The community is pretty active as I understand it.

Free, if I remember correctly.

Is that on the VMWare web site?

[TheAngryDog]

Vaud said:

https://www.vmug.com

Thank you!

[TheAngryDog]

bhstewie said:

TheAngryDog said:

I think Raid 5, if supported, would be the way to go?

This is where it gets interesting.

RAID5 is parity RAID, again do a Google as there's tons of info on it, but with drives that large, and a pretty weak "software" RAID controller behind the scenes, a rebuild could take a couple of days and if you have a read error on any of the other drives you *could* lose the lot.

If you buy a proper storage array RAID5 is all but dead these days, most vendors don't recommend it, and some pretty much call it malpractice to use it - it's generally RAID10 or RAID6 if you're happy to compromise performance for capacity.

Again there's a bit of context here in that it's a lab environment vs. a production system but it's worth doing some homework on it to understand the pros and cons.

Ah I see, thank you. Raid 10 sounds good, though I would lose half of my storage? If I had 4 4TB drives, only 8TB would be usable, and until I replaced the failed drive, I'd have no server?

Would Raid array rebuild the replacement drive from the mirror?

[TheAngryDog]

bhstewie said:

TheAngryDog said:

Ah I see, thank you. Raid 10 sounds good, though I would lose half of my storage? If I had 4 4TB drives, only 8TB would be usable, and until I replaced the failed drive, I'd have no server?

Would Raid array rebuild the replacement drive from the mirror?

It's a question you see often "But that means I lose half my storage?" and the short answer is yes, but RAID10 offers the best reliability with the lowest speed penalty of any RAID type (except RAID0) and with just 4 drives there really isn't another sensible choice if you want to have any redundancy.

Now regards rebuilds, I'm not familiar with how the Microserver onboard RAID handles it, but let's say you have a server like a HP DL380 or a Dell T/R series, and you have hot swap bays and a hardware RAID controller, if a drive fails you literally just pull it out and drop in the new drive and the RAID controller handles the rest.

With the Microserver it might need some manual intervention to kick a rebuild off, I'm not sure I'm just guessing because it's a basic controller, but I would hope the server would be useable (albeit slow) during the rebuild - you have to remember it's reading and writing 2TB of data during the rebuild so performance will be down.

Thanks again, I appreciate your input here.

I suppose that it still be quicker than having to restore everything from a backup, and as long as 2 drives dont go down (of the same mirror) then it would work well.

Otherwise the backup would be needed!

Hmmmm, might be a while before I can implement it though, I dont have the cash for 4 new 4TB drives / 3 new 2TB drives, depending on whether I think 4TB of storage is enough, or if I need 8TB..

[TheAngryDog]

I suppose there is nothing stopping me continuing to build some VM's and adding storage when I can afford it, and then backing up everything, configuring raid and then restoring my VM's?

[TheAngryDog]

Also, should I install my VM's onto a single drive, and use everything else for storage? I believe that there is a way to get a 5th drive in use for the G7, which I could use to store the VM's on for the Operating Systems, using the other 2/4 as pure storage?

[TheAngryDog]

bhstewie said:

Keep in mind you don't *need* RAID if it's just for messing around.

We have one of the original Microservers which we used to use for a very specific lightweight job, and we ran VMware on it on a single HDD with no problem.

Main thing is you have remember it's not a powerhouse, even if you stuff it full of memory the CPU is quite weak so just be realistic if you're expecting to run several instances of Windows on it.

That isn't me trying to scaremonger, but you sometimes see posts where people think virtualizing is some kind of magic bullet and they wonder why they can't run a dozen Windows VM's on a server with 2 cores and 4GB of RAM - not suggesting that's the case but all I'm saying is don't blame ESXi if things are a little slow

Of course, though it cannot hurt to learn more about RAID, it would put me in good stead for career progression.

Of course, it has a poxy AMD Dual core running around 2ghz, but aside from acting as a media server, it is literally just for me to lab on, so most of the time it will only have one VM powered up, and I'd only power up the other's when I am labbing.

bhstewie said:

Nothing at all.

Some RAID controllers will let you expand, it's a little less common with RAID10 and again I'd be surprised if the onboard one lets you do that, so best work on the principle of backup, recreate the array, and restore.

Stick with ESXi on a USB drive as it's much neater as when you do this you don't need to re-install ESXi you just re-create your datastore.

Sounds like a plan to me, sounds cleaner to me as well in all honesty.

I have every intention of keeping ESXi on the USB, would be mad to take up a usable drive just for a few gig of hypervisor

[TheAngryDog]

I guess for a home lab that isnt critical, RAID 10 across all devices seems the best way as you say.

Now I just need to decide on 2TB drives or 4TB drives! I think 4 2TB drives should be enough in the long term, I can always get a dedicated NAS if I need more.

[TheAngryDog]

bhstewie said:

TheAngryDog said:

I have every intention of keeping ESXi on the USB, would be mad to take up a usable drive just for a few gig of hypervisor

Honestly, you would be amazed how many proposed builds you see where people have specified a pair of SSD hard drives "Because I need to install ESXi somewhere".

LOL, is that through lack of understanding or just not bothering to check?

When I first set up my server I did fall into the trap of booting from a 75gb drive, but that failed after a week lol.

I then did a bit of googling and found that I could install it to USB. All the benefits of SSD without the expense!

[TheAngryDog]

I currently have one of these;

http://www.ebuyer.com/412335-toshiba-2tb-internal-...

I avoided WD as I was concerned about the failure rates I kept seeing.

[TheAngryDog]

Thats annoying. My free VMWare license seems to no longer be free - Says I have a 60 day evaluation license. I obtained a free license from VMWare when installed it on to my Server as at the time they did free licenses for single use servers.

Is this no longer the case?

[TheAngryDog]

TheAngryDog said:

Thats annoying. My free VMWare license seems to no longer be free - Says I have a 60 day evaluation license. I obtained a free license from VMWare when installed it on to my Server as at the time they did free licenses for single use servers.

Is this no longer the case?

Manged to sort it. Had to re-enter the key. Annoying!

[TheAngryDog]

This is how my datastores are set out at the moment.
Each datastore is the size of the disk it sits on. Is this bad practice?

I have no VM's installed currently.

I plan to install 3 VM's to start with - 2 2k8, 1 2k12. One of the 2k8's will be a DC, the other a Media Server and the the 2k12 will be for labbing.
I want to use Datastore1 for my DVD's that I have ripped, and a VM. Is this sensible?

[TheAngryDog]

jjlynn27 said:

TAD,

Having supervisor on usb is generally good idea, providing that;
a) you make identical copy of that usb for safekeeping.
b) only use shutdown do power the esxi host down.

As for the drives, those toshibas are excellent. I'd imagine bstevie was advising you not to go for WD Green or similar series of 'power saving' drives as they are not meant for raid (for many reasons).

Use whichever raid level you feel most comfortable with I doubt that with your setup you'll notice much difference in performance (rebuilding parity obviously excluded). If you have a spare ssd drive of pretty much any capacity you can use it as a caching drive.

I think I have a spare USB Pen drive somewhere, I will use that. The identical copy you mean is just that I could swap between the USB drives and it would still boot?

Re shutting down, I always power off from vSphere or in the hypervisor ui itself.

bhstewie said:

TheAngryDog said:

This is how my datastores are set out at the moment.
Each datastore is the size of the disk it sits on. Is this bad practice?

I have no VM's installed currently.

I plan to install 3 VM's to start with - 2 2k8, 1 2k12. One of the 2k8's will be a DC, the other a Media Server and the the 2k12 will be for labbing.
I want to use Datastore1 for my DVD's that I have ripped, and a VM. Is this sensible?

That sounds sensible.

Keep in mind you can split the VMDKs assigned to a VM so you could have the OS VMDK for a VM on datastore2 and the data VMDK on datastore1 and so on.

I plan on having two os's on one datastore as they're only going to be small installs and not critical. I've seen it is advised against to have all os's on the same datastore incase it goes down. If I had the w2k8 DC and the w2k12 Test on DS1, and my w2k8 media server on DS3, how do I make DS2 pure storage?

[TheAngryDog]

bhstewie said:

TheAngryDog said:

I plan on having two os's on one datastore as they're only going to be small installs and not critical. I've seen it is advised against to have all os's on the same datastore incase it goes down. If I had the w2k8 DC and the w2k12 Test on DS1, and my w2k8 media server on DS3, how do I make DS2 pure storage?

When you create your VMs the virtual disks live on a datastore.

So if you take your w2k8 media server, when you set it up you could go with a 40GB thin VMDK on datastore3 but when you add a drive to it to store your media on, just create that VMDK on datastore2.

Just dive in and try some stuff, it's easier than overthinking it

I'll give it a bash! Mouse is annoying on the console - wont click where I tell it to lol

[TheAngryDog]

bhstewie said:

TheAngryDog said:

I'll give it a bash! Mouse is annoying on the console - wont click where I tell it to lol

VMware Tools should take care of that.

Yeah thats my thoughts too - I cannot install that until the Guest OS is installed though can I?