[THIN] Re: OT: VMWare setup

  • From: "Evan Mann" <emann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 20:11:52 -0400

We don't need heavy I/O performance, hence the RAID 10 setup being
overkill.  But we obviously want redundancy.  We could have been fine
with a single backplane and a 5 drive RAID5 + hotspare ultimately.  But,
it's still better for overall performance to have vmswap and swap on
separate spindles.

________________________________

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Joe Shonk
Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2006 6:46 PM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: OT: VMWare setup


Perhaps, but you've already got the hardware so it's just a
configuration change at this point.  And if it's overkill,  why the Raid
1+Raid 5 + Hotspare to begin with?

Joe


On 4/13/06, Evan Mann <emann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: 

        It would be overkill for the purpose of this VMWare server.

________________________________

        From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Shonk
        Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2006 10:22 AM
        
        To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
        Subject: [THIN] Re: OT: VMWare setup
        

        Why not use Raid 10 across the split backplane...  You'll gain a
considerable performance increase over your current setup.

         

        The default values are generally ok..

         

        Joe

         

        
________________________________

        From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ] On Behalf
Of Evan Mann
        Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 1:09 PM
        To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
        Subject: [THIN] OT: VMWare setup

         

        I'm loading up VMWare ESX 2.5.2 on a single Dell server.  The
server is spec'd out with a 2x4 split backplane and 5 146gig drives and
8 gigs of RAM.  I don't have much to go on except the VMWare
documentation and this is the first time I've done this.

         

        This server won't be for Citrix, but just a general VM server.
I'm not sure the best way I should chunk this thing up storage wise. 

         

        Since I have a split backplane on the RAID system, 2 drives are
setup RAID1, and the remaining 4 drives are in a RAD5 + hotspare.

        The guide says to put a 50 meg /boot, and a swap that is 2x the
size of memory you allocate in reserved memory for the service console.
I've opted to go with 512meg of ram for the service console which it
says is for 32+ VM's.  The next step up is 800megs for maximum but I
doubt I'll even do 32, so I think 512meg reserved is fine.  Based on
that, the swap would be 1gig.

         

        After that, it says to mount the root (/) partition with "about
2500 MB".  And then it doesn't give you much else for input in the
install guide.  I could also opt for automatic partitioning, which would
do the same as above, and leave the rest as an extended partition it
looks like.

        Since I have a RAID 1 and a RAID 5, what should I put where?
I'd obviously put /boot on the RAID 1 but what about / and swap?  Should
those go there as well leaving the RAID5 for VM use?  Do I need to do
any additional partitioning beyond /boot, / and swap ?

        Thanks for the help! 


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