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We are using different virtual Servers on ESXi 5 with good experience. Now we plan to move the Fileserver to a virtual machine.<br />
VMServer ESXi 5, Windows Server 2008 R2 on HP DL380 with attached HP P2000 with SAS HBAs. The fileserver(s) with DFS is providing 12TB ‘fast’ spindles, and 36TB for archives. <br />
Shall we use for the fileserver datadisks (not OSdisk) virtual disks or raw-devices with rdm? &nbsp; Or some other configuration?
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We are using different virtual Servers on ESXi 5 with good experience. Now we plan to move the Fileserver to a virtual machine.
VMServer ESXi 5, Windows Server 2008 R2 on HP DL380 with attached HP P2000 with SAS HBAs. The fileserver(s) with DFS is providing 12TB ‘fast’ spindles, and 36TB for archives. 
Shall we use for the fileserver datadisks (not OSdisk) virtual disks or raw-devices with rdm?   Or some other configuration?

RAW or Virtual Disk

Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, based on the Microsoft Vista codebase, is the last 32-bit server operating system released by Microsoft. It has a number of versions, including including Foundation, Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web, HPC Server, Itanium and Storage; new features included server core installation and Hyper-V.

Windows Server 2008

VMware, a software company founded in 1998,  was one of the first commercially successful companies to offer x86 virtualization. The storage company EMC purchased VMware in 1994. Dell Technologies acquired EMC in 2016. VMware’s parent company is now Dell Technologies.

VMware has many software products that run on desktops, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, which allows the virtualizing of the x86 architecture.  Its enterprise software hypervisor for servers, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on the server hardware and does not require an additional underlying operating system.

VMware

Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media used to retain digital data. In addition to local storage devices like CD and DVD readers, hard drives and flash drives, solid state drives can hold enormous amounts of data in a very small device. Cloud services and other new forms of remote storage also add to the capacity of devices and their ability to access more data without building additional data storage into a device.