Running 8 VMs - hard drive questions

H

hellosky

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 28, 2010
Messages
111
Folks,
I'm in the process of setting up a ESXi server for pentesting, security stuff, etc.
This is going into an Optiplex 980 SFF machine, it has room for either 1 3.5" drive or 2 2.5" drive.

Would you recommend 1 big drive or 2 laptop drives? I'm thinking laptop drives would be better but can a laptop drive handle 3-4VMs running at the same time? This will be a mix of Windows and Linux VMs.
 
Multiple drives would be more beneficial as you can at least split the VM load over two disks.
8 VMs contending for 1 physical drive < 4 VMs contending for 1 drive.

Curious: Is this an existing system? Does it have a hardware RAID card in it?
 
No, it's a low profile system with Intel ICH10R. No room for a RAID controller and I'm thinking of sticking in a dedicated NIC for the VMs (not sure if this would help or not)
 
I have run 8 vms on a single laptop drive for a pen test class I teach. Its painful as hell starting up and shutting down, but otherwise its not horrendous. I would definitely suggest going for the two drives. Usually I split up running vms as much as possible across my physical disks.
 
In the case of SFF Optiplex 980, directly from Dell's website

1. You have 2 x 3.5" internal disks
2. 1 x external 3.5" (slimline)
3. 1 x external 5.25" (slim line)

I do not have physical access to Optiplex 980 so I cannot say here with certainty, sometimes even though you have the room, but Dell provides absolutely exact number of power connectors/sata ports so you may not be able to utilize them to the fullest. Therefore

1. If everything aligns, you can line up 2 or more disks.
2. If for whatever reason, you cannot do that or prefer lighter/quicker setup due to demand, one possible way is to deploy 80GB or 120GB Solid State Disk. But you need to be very careful here because I do not know whether ESXi has any consideration for SSD to minimize write-wearing/TRIM-support.
3. However, since you are doing pen. testing and security stuff, sounds like you are one of the bleeding edge type with high potential and perhaps no time to waste, thus your scenario can afford an entry level SSD. Your company should buy one for use.
 
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Definitely takes 2 drives, right now it is running Windows in RAID 1. There really isn't money for SSDs so these laptop drives will do. Thanksf or the help!
 
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