Moving from HyperV

[5isalive]

I am currently running 2k8R2 with hyperv running a Windows 7 machine and a WHS with direct access to 3-1.5Tb drives. The server is a Dell PE 2900III, E5420, 18Gig of ram and 3-73Gig 15krpm sas drives for 2k8. The server has a PERC 6i card doing raid 5 on the 73gig drives. I have room for 7 drives.

It seems to work fine but I have been doing more Cisco UCM work so would like to run their product as virtual machines.

So I am now getting 4 more 2tb drives and to run CUCM I need ESXi. I have installed a couple clients with CUCM virtualized so that won't be an issue, I just want to know what the best way to setup my drives w/ raid with what I have or what would be best if I had to buy some different hardware (as long as it isn't over say $200).

Will also have some type of server to do the backups of my computers at home like what I do with WHS, I think I have heard that 2011 sbs has about the same tools? Will also run some windows 7 boxes for media center and other streaming apps.

Right now for my network I have a 3560G connected to a Cisco ASA 5510.

Thank you for your time.

 

[airalex]

Anyone have any insight to this? I'm curious as well.

 

[Exavior]

This thread has been quiet for a few weeks but what exactly is the question here that you are curious about?

Only question I see asked really is if the 4 drives should be setup as RAID or not.

 

[5isalive]

I guess it is how should I build the arrays with 4 - 2tb drives, 3 1.5 tb drives and 3 73gig sas drives. Right now I have data on the 1.5s that I will need to save. I am planning on buying a 8gig usb drive to install ESXi 5 on will that work or should I use the 73 gig drives? Does it matter what brand or does someone have a suggestion.

Can I do direct access to the drives like I did with hyper v? I liked that I had direct access to the drives so if the raid controller died I still had access to the data(well I think I do haven't tested yet). Should I stick with windows home server or go to 2011 sbs and does it have backup capabilities like WHS? Or is there something better to backup ~10 PCs on the network?

Or should I pitch the whole local hard drive access and look at going to iSCSI?

I have 2 gig nics built into the server should I get more for better speed on the network? Should I team them?

Sorry I guess I never really had a good question on the first post, just looking for a lot of information. When I build the servers for clients Cisco has set rules on how everything needs setup and I just follow documentation.

 

[cyr0n_k0r]

Questions about building RAID arrays is better suited for the Storage forum.

 

[k1pp3r]

Or better yet, measure your IOPs and plan accordingly

 

[Exavior]

Well, first off you can't build a raid with drives that aren't the same size so that would give you 3 arrays. How much do you care about it being reliable? Raid 5 would be the best choice in the event you lose a drive. would give you 6TB usable from the 2TB drives, 3 TB from the 1.5TB drives, and then 146GB from the 73GB drives.

Is this for personal use or for business?

Backup Exec would be good for backups, but it wouldn't be dirt cheap.

 

[5isalive]

Personal use. I know I can't build with different sizes. Was thinking of having the OS on the SAS drives since they should be fastest. And getting a 8 gig sandisk usb drive for the ESXi install.

The biggest question is would it be best to do direct access to all the drives and then use WHS to put them all in a pool like i am doing with the current 1.5tb drives? This way if the raid controller dies I don't loose data because I can just plug the drive into a usb dock and have access to the data. Or doesn't it work that way.

Any one know if I can do direct access to some drives but not all? From what I was reading it looks like you can do direct access to the Raid controller so that would be all the drives unless the Dell is special.