asked on

Add Storage in to VM

Hello,

Here's an easy one for all the EE experts here.

I'm about to set up a 2008 R2 server and I would like to set it up as a VM... however I'm going to have to add an external Raid for some additional storage.

Say my RAID already had data on it and I just want to add this to an existing VM... how would I do that (will be using a Fibre card). I need to have the option to move this 20TB raid to any machine (VM or not) and be able to access this data. I should also mention that I'm going to have to create this on the 2008 VM for the time being, but need the option of moving this Raid from one machine to the next.

Thanks for your assistance and looking forward to your reply!

Cheers!

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

There's a small issue here because 20TB is too large for VMware vSphere to handle.

The maximum size of virtual disk for a VM in VMware vSphere is 2TB-512bytes.

Configuration Maximums for VMware vSphere 4.1
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf

Other options would be to present this data to a VM using Microsoft iSCSI initiator.

If you were using VMDirect Path, you could maybe use the Fibre Card in the VM, but I'm still not certain this would work.

goraek

Awkward setup, I would suggest putting a SAN!

buzz_2_infinity

ASKER

Hello, I wasn't aware that this this was to large for this to handle. I'm afraid that a SAN isn't going to be possible in this case... so just looking for some additional solutions.

I may look at the Microsoft iSCSI initiator... I haven't used this before. Is this difficult to set up?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

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buzz_2_infinity

ASKER

Ok, cool.

Thank you. I'll see how things go over the next few days.

Thank you very much!

kevinhsieh

You need to be sure that your external RAID supports iSCSI. It would need to connect via Ethernet, not Fibre Channel.

buzz_2_infinity

ASKER

I'm sure it does... but will have to check over the next while.

buzz_2_infinity

ASKER

I've requested that this question be deleted for the following reason:

Question no longer needed

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

If the question was helpful, which I assume it was by your comment of

"Ok, cool.

Thank you. I'll see how things go over the next few days.

Thank you very much!"

Please assign points.

Nagendra Pratap Singh

Question may no longer be needed by you but it was answered properly.

This much information would have taken you several hours to find.
Points need to be given.