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gopher_49

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drive configuration for ESXi

My goal is to be able to utilize a  4 drive configuration for both my datastore and my ESXi OS installation.  Is this possible?  I plan to use 4 drives in a RAID 6 config.  As I understand I need a logical drive created at the controller level for the ESXI OS to install onto and a seperate logical for the datastore..  The reason I ask this is due to me needing to save space on the rack for I pay per 1U per month.
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coolsport00
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This server is will be used to provide paying services...  Using a SD card just doesn't seem that reliable...  Is it?
I guess at the datacenter it will be colacating at I could have 2 imaged SD cards and if something happens they simply swap them.
Sure is. How often does RAM go bad compared to disks? But, I will say this...you have no redundancy/failover like you would in a RAID setup.
So,

Couldn't I just simply create two of these and keep one at the datacenter?
Yep, thats what we usually recommend to do.
Now, once I load ESXi onto the usb memory stick how to I mirror image it to the second one?  It will need to be bootable... Maybe easier to simply perform two installs?  One to each USB memory stick?
You could do that or use an 'imaging' tool like winimage
yea.. I thought about winimage or something similar.. I wasn't sure if it could read the boot sector properly.. ok..  I'll go this route.

Thanks!
Glad to help...good luck!

~coolsport00
I plan to use a Dell PowerEdge 2950.  Since it supports 3.5" SATA drives I can get the lower cost SATA drives. I can even look into getting the 6 x bay option and have a mirror and a RAID 6 for the datastore.  I could simply use a USB CD ROM to load the OS since I think I'll be missing the CD rom once the 6 bay was installed.

Thanks!