Need quick answer on SSD server raid!

[Oyeve]

So, I have a new project for proprietary software that calls for 4x400GB SSD, in two raid mirrors. So I set up windows server 2012 on a new dell server and had it configured with 2 mirrored partitions. Now that I need to wipe all of this out and install ESXI I am wondering if I should do one of the following:

1. Purchase a new hardware RAID card for the server or:

2. Purchase one 400GB SSD and just install ESXI on that and leave the already set up 2x400GB mirrored drive.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

ESXI can go on a thumb drive. Use the SSDs for datastores.

 

[frowertr]

ESXI can go on a thumb drive. Use the SSDs for datastores.

+1

No reason to dedicate an entire drive to ESXi when a simple thumbdrive will do.

 

[Oyeve]

ESXI can go on a thumb drive. Use the SSDs for datastores.

I thought about that but I like to practice "best practices".

Im leaning towards purchasing another enterprise SSD just for ESXI and keep the other 4 as is. Unless there's a reason not to.

 

[frowertr]

Using a thumb drive to boot ESXi is "best practice". I don't know of any production server that does it any other way other than from a SD card maybe.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Using a thumb drive to boot ESXi is "best practice". I don't know of any production server that does it any other way other than from a SD card maybe.

We have a few that came from the factory with 300GB mirrored RAIDs. Just how they were purchased (before we knew they'd be hypervisors, and we buy oodles of them in standard configs for all sorts of dev tasks). So we boot from those rather than rip them out and find SD cards.

It's not like can use the drives for anything else. Our data is on a proper SAN.

The company that sold us the servers offers them for a few bucks less with just an SD card installer internally, and you can even get them with ESX preinstalled on the SD card.

FWIW, iirc there are "enterprise" rated SD cards for these sorts of uses, although I don't know what the difference is.

 

[frowertr]

Yeah I've seen people doing it that way but I'd say it's fairly uncommon nowadays. Like you said, it's not like those drives are good for anything else and since they came installed that way why not use them.

 

[tcsenter]

What is the chipset integrated SATA ports on the new Dell server?

 

[sdifox]

Wipe array, install esxi on USB 3.0 stick. Turn drive array into raw data store.

 

[sdifox]

Using a thumb drive to boot ESXi is "best practice". I don't know of any production server that does it any other way other than from a SD card maybe.

Last gen Dell PEs had an SD slot and prebuilt esxi SD card. Probably still there for current Gen.