The server only has 2 bays in it.  Can VMware do software RAID?<br clear="all"><div><div><br>...Skeeve</div><div><br></div><div><div><b style="font-size:13px;font-family:Calibri">Skeeve Stevens - </b><span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Calibri">eintellego Networks Pty Ltd</span></div>

<div><div><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px"><a href="mailto:skeeve@eintellegonetworks.com" target="_blank">skeeve@eintellegonetworks.com</a> ; <a href="http://www.eintellegonetworks.com/" target="_blank">www.eintellegonetworks.com</a></span><font><p style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px;margin:0px">

Phone: 1300 239 038; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; <a>skype://skeeve</a></p><p style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px;margin:0px"><a href="http://facebook.com/eintellegonetworks" target="_blank">facebook.com/eintellegonetworks</a> ; <a href="http://twitter.com/networkceoau" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://linkedin.com/in/skeeve" target="_blank">linkedin.com/in/skeeve</a> </p>

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<p style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px;margin:0px"><img src="http://www.eintellegonetworks.com/sig/einsig.png" style="font-family:arial;font-size:small"></p><p style="margin:0px"><span style="color:rgb(127,0,127);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:13px">The Experts Who The Experts Call</span></p>

</font></div><div style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px;color:rgb(127,0,127)"><span style="color:rgb(0,32,96);font-size:13px">Juniper - Cisco </span><span style="color:rgb(0,32,96);font-size:13px">- Cloud</span></div>

</div></div></div>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 2:55 PM, Jake Anderson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:yahoo@vapourforge.com" target="_blank">yahoo@vapourforge.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">


  
    
  
  <div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
    <div>On 14/02/13 14:43, Skeeve Stevens
      wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote type="cite">OK, so today is a day of learning.
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>As I said.. I am NOT a server hardware guy.  Based on some of
        the responses, I now have learned that SATA drives will fit into
        a SAS interface (but not the reverse).  This is awesome... I
        thought they were completely different.</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>So, it is a DELL 1950 with 32Gb ram, 2 x Dual Core 3Ghz
        processors.  I am still unclear what, if any RAID is on board.</div>
    </blockquote>
    I would stay away from "hardware" raid, if you don't need it for
    ultimate performance use software raid.<br>
    When the computer craps itself, slap the drives into a new host and
    be running again, no need to hunt down the exact same model of raid
    card.<br>
    <br>
    <blockquote type="cite">
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>The server will be used for a dozen VMs.  Centos, general
        purpose, DNS, radius, etc with httpd front end and some mySQL
        backend, but all low performance.  The sort of VMs you commit
        128mb of ram to and max at 1-1.5Gb ram.</div>
    </blockquote>
    you can never have too much ram, this applies double with VM's
    ;-><br>
    <blockquote type="cite">
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>FYI, I know how to manage Vmware and staggering the boots,
        and so on.</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>Oh yeah.. and I did mean 7.2k drives.. ;-)</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>So.. now that I know I can use SATA drives... it opens things
        up a bit.</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>I am looking at Ingram.. still some thing I don't understand.</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div><a href="https://au.ingrammicro.com/_layouts/CommerceServer/IM/ProductDetails.aspx?id=AU01@@2210@@10@@000000000001885395" rel="#product-title-2-info" style="line-height:14px;color:rgb(167,25,48);font-size:11px;overflow:hidden;font-family:arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;text-decoration:initial" target="_blank">HP
          2TB SATA 6Gb/s 7200 HDD</a> - $292</div>
      <div><a href="https://au.ingrammicro.com/_layouts/CommerceServer/IM/ProductDetails.aspx?id=AU01@@2210@@10@@000000000001551449" rel="#product-title-3-info" style="line-height:14px;color:rgb(167,25,48);font-size:11px;overflow:hidden;font-family:arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;text-decoration:initial" target="_blank">HP
          2TB SATA 3Gb/s NCQ 7200 HDD</a> - $342</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>No idea what NCQ is, and why the faster TP drive is cheaper.
         Anyone?</div>
    </blockquote>
    NCQ is native command queing, the HDD will re-order buffered reads
    on the fly for the best average access time.<br>
    Can be a decent gain on a heavy disk load.<br>
    <br>
    <blockquote type="cite">
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>These look nice:</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div><a href="https://au.ingrammicro.com/_layouts/CommerceServer/IM/ProductDetails.aspx?id=AU01@@2210@@10@@000000000002145465" rel="#product-title-4-info" style="line-height:14px;color:rgb(167,25,48);font-size:11px;overflow:hidden;font-family:arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;text-decoration:initial" target="_blank"><span>SEAGATE</span> Constellation CS SATA 2TB
          3.5" 7200RPM 64 Cache</a> - $159 lots in stock</div>
      <div>
        <div style="line-height:14px;color:rgb(167,25,48);font-size:11px;font-family:arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;margin:5px 0px 0px;min-height:14px;padding:0px"><a href="https://au.ingrammicro.com/_layouts/CommerceServer/IM/ProductDetails.aspx?id=AU01@@2210@@10@@000000000002145467" rel="#product-title-2-info" style="color:rgb(167,25,48);overflow:hidden" target="_blank"><span>SEAGATE</span> Constellation CS SATA
            3TB 3.5" 7200RPM 64 Cache</a> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small;line-height:normal;background-color:transparent"> -
            $219 lots in stock</span></div>
        <div style="color:rgb(125,125,124)!important;text-align:center;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:11px;font-family:arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif;margin:5px 5px 5px 0px;padding:0px;float:left"></div>
      </div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>I see some NL drives (assuming what someone said was Near
        Line) - no idea what that is though.</div>
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>I was also thinking that if the chassis had the space, I
        should put a little SSD of CF on board to install the ESX onto
        to keep the OS off the drives... thoughts?  My assumption is
        that once VMware is booted, its disk access is minimal.</div>
    </blockquote>
    I would doubly not do this, or if you do, raid them.<br>
    SSD's have the same failure rate as rotating media. Often with worse
    failure properties, one day they just disappear, no degradation, bad
    sectors or anything first.<br>
    I would put a RAID1 in for boot and put your OS on that.<br>
    however you configure the rest of the array, its good if the system
    can still get booted regardless of the degradation.<br>
    Given a number of VM's running partitioning is perhaps a good thing
    to look at, rather than one bigass raid5 array, put a few smaller
    raid1's in.<br>
    Spread the VM's across the spindles so if a mail system starts
    thrashing grabbing somebodies emails, when their mail client starts
    pushing it back onto the file server you aren't running all that on
    the same set of spindles.<br>
    Be sure to align all the VM's with sector boundary’s. Right the way
    through the chain. IE the VM's internal partitions should start on a
    boundary of the physical disk.<br>
    <br>
    <br>
    <blockquote type="cite">
      <div><br>
      </div>
      <div>
        <div>
          <div><br>
            ...Skeeve</div>
          <div><br>
          </div>
          <div>
            <div><b style="font-size:13px;font-family:Calibri">Skeeve
                Stevens - </b><span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Calibri">eintellego
                Networks Pty Ltd</span></div>
            <div>
              <div><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px"><a href="mailto:skeeve@eintellegonetworks.com" target="_blank">skeeve@eintellegonetworks.com</a> ; <a href="http://www.eintellegonetworks.com/" target="_blank">www.eintellegonetworks.com</a></span><font>
                  <p style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px;margin:0px">
                    Phone: 1300 239 038; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; <a>skype://skeeve</a></p>
                  <p style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px;margin:0px"><a href="http://facebook.com/eintellegonetworks" target="_blank">facebook.com/eintellegonetworks</a> ; <a href="http://linkedin.com/in/skeeve" target="_blank">linkedin.com/in/skeeve</a> </p>


                  <p style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px;margin:0px"><a href="http://twitter.com/networkceoau" target="_blank">twitter.com/networkceoau</a> ;
                    blog: <a href="http://www.network-ceo.net/" target="_blank">www.network-ceo.net</a></p>
                  <p style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px;margin:0px"><img style="font-family:arial;font-size:small"></p>
                  <p style="margin:0px"><span style="color:rgb(127,0,127);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:13px">The
                      Experts Who The Experts Call</span></p>
                </font></div>
              <div style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px;color:rgb(127,0,127)"><span style="color:rgb(0,32,96);font-size:13px">Juniper -
                  Cisco </span><span style="color:rgb(0,32,96);font-size:13px">- Cloud</span></div>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <br>
        <br>
        <div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 1:10 PM, Skeeve
          Stevens <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:skeeve+ausnog@eintellegonetworks.com" target="_blank">skeeve+ausnog@eintellegonetworks.com</a>></span>
          wrote:<br>
          <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hey guys,
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>I know a bit about operating servers, but know bugger
              all about the hardware, especially when it comes to hard
              drives.</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>I am needing to deploy a server for some low
              performance VM's, and it has 32Gb ram, Dual core dual
              processor 3Ghz... so all good.  Should run a few linux
              VM's on ESX.</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>But... hard drives I really don't know about.</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>The chassis takes SAS drives.  In it are some small
              drives and I want to upgrade.</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>Will 7.5k speed drives be ok on a VMware server if its
              not for high performance processing?  The cost of 15k SAS
              drives still seem to be rather expensive.  I was hoping
              for 500Gb-600Gb of space.</div>
            <div><br>
            </div>
            <div>Any thoughts on which brand is ok... I will be putting
              a single drive in mirrored (only 2 bays).<br clear="all">
              <div>
                <div><br>
                  ...Skeeve</div>
                <div><br>
                </div>
                <div>
                  <div><b style="font-size:13px;font-family:Calibri">Skeeve
                      Stevens - </b><span style="font-size:13px;font-family:Calibri">eintellego
                      Networks Pty Ltd</span></div>
                  <div>
                    <div><span style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px"><a href="mailto:skeeve@eintellegonetworks.com" target="_blank">skeeve@eintellegonetworks.com</a> ; <a href="http://www.eintellegonetworks.com/" target="_blank">www.eintellegonetworks.com</a></span><font>
                        <p style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px;margin:0px">
                          Phone: 1300 239 038; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383
                          ; <a>skype://skeeve</a></p>
                        <p style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px;margin:0px"><a href="http://facebook.com/eintellegonetworks" target="_blank">facebook.com/eintellegonetworks</a> ; <a href="http://linkedin.com/in/skeeve" target="_blank">linkedin.com/in/skeeve</a> </p>


                        <p style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px;margin:0px"><a href="http://twitter.com/networkceoau" target="_blank">twitter.com/networkceoau</a> ;
                          blog: <a href="http://www.network-ceo.net/" target="_blank">www.network-ceo.net</a></p>
                        <p style="font-family:Calibri;font-size:13px;margin:0px"><img style="font-family:arial;font-size:small"></p>
                        <p style="margin:0px"><span style="color:rgb(127,0,127);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:13px">The
                            Experts Who The Experts Call</span></p>
                      </font></div>
                    <div style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14px;color:rgb(127,0,127)"><span style="color:rgb(0,32,96);font-size:13px">Juniper
                        - Cisco </span><span style="color:rgb(0,32,96);font-size:13px">-
                        Cloud</span></div>
                  </div>
                </div>
              </div>
            </div>
          </blockquote>
        </div>
        <br>
      </div>
      <br>
      <fieldset></fieldset>
      <br>
      <pre>_______________________________________________
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</pre>
    </blockquote>
    <br>
  </div>

</blockquote></div><br>