Two ESXi hosts, one SAN, discussion mostly...
I have two ESXi hosts with no internal hard drives. Just processors and RAM.
Along with that, I have one SAN (26TB of 7200 RPM SATA drives.
This is all connected via SAS connections (two from each server to each of the two nodes on the SAN.
Usage wise, the ESXi hosts boot off of the SAN. The VMs that the hosts support run in a single datastore on the SAN. The D2D backups we are running are also sent to the SAN.
My thinking is that this is a bad idea. Our hosts OS is on the SAN. Our VMs are on the SAN and our D2D backups are on the SAN.
Granted, it's got two power supplies and and it's an IBM StorageWorks 3700, but still, everything centers on the SAN. I think this is a bad idea. I think the OS, VMs and backups need to be on different devices.
If we lose the SAN, we lose everything.
Expert thoughts?
Thanks…I'll split points between all who reply.
Cliff
Along with that, I have one SAN (26TB of 7200 RPM SATA drives.
This is all connected via SAS connections (two from each server to each of the two nodes on the SAN.
Usage wise, the ESXi hosts boot off of the SAN. The VMs that the hosts support run in a single datastore on the SAN. The D2D backups we are running are also sent to the SAN.
My thinking is that this is a bad idea. Our hosts OS is on the SAN. Our VMs are on the SAN and our D2D backups are on the SAN.
Granted, it's got two power supplies and and it's an IBM StorageWorks 3700, but still, everything centers on the SAN. I think this is a bad idea. I think the OS, VMs and backups need to be on different devices.
If we lose the SAN, we lose everything.
Expert thoughts?
Thanks…I'll split points between all who reply.
Cliff
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If SAN is down all your VM's and host are down, My Suggestion as below
1) Alternatively you can use SD card for ESXi booting
2) Backup the VM's to a NAS box which would be cheaper
1) Alternatively you can use SD card for ESXi booting
2) Backup the VM's to a NAS box which would be cheaper
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