ESXi Setup/Sizing Question

Hello,

I have a DL380 G7 server, with dual processors and 8 x 146 GB 15k drives. The box has 32 GB of ram.

I'm looking to use this to host an Exchange 2010 server as well as some other virtual guests but not sure the best approach to take. I don't know how many other guests will be on the box, but I'd say 5 beyond exchange of the lighter capacity like a DC.

I'm always concerned about performance and find it harder now with virtualization to find solid information on what will work. The location has about 100 users.

Just looking for feedback on how others would setup a server with these requirements.

Thanks!

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Last Comment

andyalder

8/22/2022 - Mon

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

12/26/2012

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newmath

12/26/2012

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mmicha

12/26/2012

ASKER

This would be done with SAS DAS... No NAS/SAN type of disk configuration.

newmath

12/26/2012

In that case, I'd still consider my two points above. Hope that helps you. You should see pretty good performance with 8 15k spindles. If your controller supports it: go RAID50 instead of RAID10. RAID10 has excellent read performance, but Exchange in particular will perform a lot of writes. RAID50 gives you a good balance of performance v. storage offset.

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andyalder

12/26/2012

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