Question : Best way to configure my EsXi Host Server

Hi Guys,

I have a new Dell R410 Server with 16GB Ram, Dual Quad Core E5506 CPU's and 2 RAID 1 arrays. Datastore1 is a 1TB SAS, Datastore2 is a 1TB SATA. It has 2 builtin 1GIG Nics , and a Intel Server 1 GIG Nic addin ( I am at home right now and cannot confirm specs)

All I need to P2V are 2 servers, A Win2k3DC/Terminal Server which I plan to in-place upgrade to win2k8 afterwards as it has legacy apps , a legacy win2k3 SQL2000 Server and setup a new win2k8 File Server.
We have 5 printers, and 6 users, as we are a small office and the old servers hardware is due for replacement.

I am new to VMware, and am learning this as I go, I have done alot of reading believe I have a handle on the basics. Provisioning resources, p2v is all ok.  I am using ESXi 4.1 Free version during design and testing, with a view to purchasing if it proves suitable.  Otherwise I will investigate MS's offerings.

I cannot find anything about the best way to ultilize both my R1 arrays.  The SAS is faster than the SATA obv, and Im thinking of putting the vm's pagefiles on another virtualdrive on the other datastore for speed.

Or should I have all the VM's on Datastore1 and create the virtualdrives for file storage on datastore2, and then link them into the fileservers vm ?

I cant afford a SAN and only have the local storage available.

Could someone pls provide some opinions of what I should be considering for my datastores ?
Also, I need a way to get my Shadowprotect images into a VirtualDrive, so my shadowprotect IT Edition can restore from the datastores, rather than across the LAN as it should be faster for all my rebuilding and testing. ( Do I have to create a VM, simply to add them in, ie is there a shortcut ?)

Many Thanks in Advance
Cameron.

Answer : Best way to configure my EsXi Host Server

Look to VMware Converter to either P2V your running boxes or to import your Shadow Protect images. I have seen some recent activity where the newest 4.0 versions of shadow protect are not supported, but version 3.x are.

So far as your raid arrays - you can pretty much decide when you create the VM where it will go. For a smaller environment like yours SATA raid is probably adequate for OS disks, and I would use the faster datastore for DATA disks, like for SQL and your Fileserver.

You indicated RAID 1 - which is great for performance, but offers no redundancy. I would consider instead RAID5 that gives a good tradeoff for performance and redundance, or RAID 10 if performance is the key consideration.

Good Luck