tinhnho
asked on
Just Installed new hard drive for VMware ESX
Hi guys,
I have a HP DL360 box with a SCSI hard drive. I bought a new scsi drive and insert it in the box. What do i have to do to make VMware ESX to recognize the new scsi (it's 72GB)? I'd like to install couple guests OS on new scsi by the way.
Thanks.
I have a HP DL360 box with a SCSI hard drive. I bought a new scsi drive and insert it in the box. What do i have to do to make VMware ESX to recognize the new scsi (it's 72GB)? I'd like to install couple guests OS on new scsi by the way.
Thanks.
ASKER
Hi there,
I don't have fault tolerance for my box. Is it ok to create a new LUN ?
Before i had only one scsi hdd and it's 36GB. I think i need to google for the scsi controller untility software. Thanks
I
I don't have fault tolerance for my box. Is it ok to create a new LUN ?
Before i had only one scsi hdd and it's 36GB. I think i need to google for the scsi controller untility software. Thanks
I
Hi,
You can create LUNs without fault tolerance, but in production environment I strongly suggest you to use at least two disk in mirror (RAID1).
When your server boot SCSI controller BIOS prompt you to press a function key (example F8-F12) to enter configuration utility to view\modify\create LUNs.
Are your server already installed with VMware ?
Hope this can help you,
Giovanni Coa
You can create LUNs without fault tolerance, but in production environment I strongly suggest you to use at least two disk in mirror (RAID1).
When your server boot SCSI controller BIOS prompt you to press a function key (example F8-F12) to enter configuration utility to view\modify\create LUNs.
Are your server already installed with VMware ?
Hope this can help you,
Giovanni Coa
ASKER
yes, my server is already installed VMware ESX. Will it make harder to setup second scsi drive ?
Thanks
Thanks
I try to explain me better ...
Normally, when you setup a virtualized or traditional server environment, is very best practice to have at least 2 mirrored disk and 3 data disks.
The first two disks are normally mirrored (writing will be performed from the scsi controller on the both disks for fault tolerance) as a single LUN and you install Operating System or Virtualization software on that LUN disks.
The second three disks are normally configured for RAID5 (for fault tolerance) and you put your data or VMware VMFS with virtualized Virtual Machines .
After that you can also install VMware and virtual machines on a single disk, but at your risk, because if that disk fail you lost VMware and all of your Virtual Machines. The same if you use a single disk for Virtual Machines, if it fail you lost all virtual machines.
Hope this can help you,
Giovanni Coa
Normally, when you setup a virtualized or traditional server environment, is very best practice to have at least 2 mirrored disk and 3 data disks.
The first two disks are normally mirrored (writing will be performed from the scsi controller on the both disks for fault tolerance) as a single LUN and you install Operating System or Virtualization software on that LUN disks.
The second three disks are normally configured for RAID5 (for fault tolerance) and you put your data or VMware VMFS with virtualized Virtual Machines .
After that you can also install VMware and virtual machines on a single disk, but at your risk, because if that disk fail you lost VMware and all of your Virtual Machines. The same if you use a single disk for Virtual Machines, if it fail you lost all virtual machines.
Hope this can help you,
Giovanni Coa
ASKER
Hi
I have a HP DL360 server with 1 scsi drive. I installed VMware ESX on it last couple weeks.
Recently I just bought a new scsi hard drive and inserted to the server. I want this second scsi will store all my VMware VMFS with virtualized Virtual Machines.
I don't have any RAID setup on my server and plus I only have 2 bays for 2 scsi hard drives.
For my case, I will using first scsi disk for VMware OS and second scsi disk for virtual machines. I know this is not the good way to setup VMware ESX, plus it is not a production server I would care less.
Other question, If you want to set up RAID 1 or RAID 5, do i have to install VMware ESX first then go to command line to configure the RAIDs ? or do I have to do it thru VI ?
I configured RAID with redhat OS for other machines before but not sure VMware ESX will be the same.
Thanks a lot for your helps.
I have a HP DL360 server with 1 scsi drive. I installed VMware ESX on it last couple weeks.
Recently I just bought a new scsi hard drive and inserted to the server. I want this second scsi will store all my VMware VMFS with virtualized Virtual Machines.
I don't have any RAID setup on my server and plus I only have 2 bays for 2 scsi hard drives.
For my case, I will using first scsi disk for VMware OS and second scsi disk for virtual machines. I know this is not the good way to setup VMware ESX, plus it is not a production server I would care less.
Other question, If you want to set up RAID 1 or RAID 5, do i have to install VMware ESX first then go to command line to configure the RAIDs ? or do I have to do it thru VI ?
I configured RAID with redhat OS for other machines before but not sure VMware ESX will be the same.
Thanks a lot for your helps.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
...and if you ARE using a production server which you aren't able to restart.
Then simply...
1. Log in to the ESX server with the VMware Infrastructure Client.
2. Select ESX host (server name) in the left frame and then go to "Configuration" tab and look for "Storage Adapters" under "Hardware".
3. Run "Rescan..." which is available in the upper right corner. A new window will pop up with selections for what to rescan (both options are ticked as default) so just go ahead and click "Go".
4. The newly inserted drive(s) will appear as new SCSI Target (n) where n is an incremential value.
5. Now in the "Hardware" menu select "Storage" -> "Add Storage..." and select option "Disk/LUN" and "Next". and it should show the current disk layout and also "The hard disk is blank." text written. If it's not then you should probably go back and review that it's the correct disk you've selected just to be sure.
6. Next you're prompted to insert a "Datastore Name". I chose simply "storage3" since the person who installed the machine had chosen that convention and already had "storage1 & storage2" there already.
7. At formatting page you'll probably mostly be using the dafault value at "256GB, Block size: 1MB", it's just if you have very large Terrabyte partitions where you might want to tweak the settings here to maximize transfer speeds a bit.
8. Last summary page of no return to begin the formatting ;-)
Now you should look at the progress in the bottom of the screen "Recent Tasks" that the new VMFS Datastore has been created successfully and ready to use.
I hope this is of use to someone out there.
Have a nice weekend and Happy Halloween =)
Cheers,
...MARTiN
Then simply...
1. Log in to the ESX server with the VMware Infrastructure Client.
2. Select ESX host (server name) in the left frame and then go to "Configuration" tab and look for "Storage Adapters" under "Hardware".
3. Run "Rescan..." which is available in the upper right corner. A new window will pop up with selections for what to rescan (both options are ticked as default) so just go ahead and click "Go".
4. The newly inserted drive(s) will appear as new SCSI Target (n) where n is an incremential value.
5. Now in the "Hardware" menu select "Storage" -> "Add Storage..." and select option "Disk/LUN" and "Next". and it should show the current disk layout and also "The hard disk is blank." text written. If it's not then you should probably go back and review that it's the correct disk you've selected just to be sure.
6. Next you're prompted to insert a "Datastore Name". I chose simply "storage3" since the person who installed the machine had chosen that convention and already had "storage1 & storage2" there already.
7. At formatting page you'll probably mostly be using the dafault value at "256GB, Block size: 1MB", it's just if you have very large Terrabyte partitions where you might want to tweak the settings here to maximize transfer speeds a bit.
8. Last summary page of no return to begin the formatting ;-)
Now you should look at the progress in the bottom of the screen "Recent Tasks" that the new VMFS Datastore has been created successfully and ready to use.
I hope this is of use to someone out there.
Have a nice weekend and Happy Halloween =)
Cheers,
...MARTiN
for first you must create a new LUN (I hope you have any type of fault tolerance). To do this down your server and use your scsi controller utility to create a new LUN.
To discover new LUN on VMware you need to use VI client, go to esxhost > configuration > storage adapters and do a Rescan selecting only the "scan for new storage devices".
After that go to esxhost > configuration > storage > Add storage > Disk/LUN and you see the new added LUN as free space.
Format it as datastore and you are ready to use.
Hope this help you,
Giovanni Coa