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Advantages and best scenario to use the SR Smartcache on the HPE p408i-a G10 ML350 Server?

HPE Smart Array controller P408i-a G10 ML350 Proliant Server, 12 core, 4x SAS 600GB 10K HDDs in a Raid5. Would using an SSD drive for SR Smartcache on a VMWare configuration with 3 VMs benefit performance? Does this SR Smartcache work in some configuration and not others? VMs include WS16 RDS, OES Linux Server, WS16 WebServer. VMWare will be loaded onto a HPE Micro Secure 32GB Digital Card.
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Avatar of Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
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After asking this question the cheapest HPE SSD for the G10 server is $1200 dollars which make it out of the price range for this server.

If I could ask another question. Would you suggest running the VMware on the HPE Micro Secure 32GB Digital Card, or do these older memory chip designs give issues or fail often.
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I'm sorry, that was not what I was asking. I would only use the HPE chip, but isn't the HPE chip based on the old flash nand standards developed in 1984?

Maybe a better question would have been, have you had any issues with the high quality MicroSd chips running WMware in servers? And is there a recommended replacement time of the SD chip over a period of years due to limited writes to the memory?
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I found this comments online. Would they apply to the New ML350 G10 servers and the MicroSD chip?

Using a SD card to host your VMWare install is a supported feature. ESXi gets loaded into RAM anyway when you start it, so why not do it? You'll need to repoint where logs are stored, but that's a trivial change.

The only caveat I will mention to you is the DL380G9 used to have an issue with ESXi losing a connection to the SD card interface. The server will continue to function through this, but you'll need to restart your host to clear the issue.

One warning about SD cards on the later HP servers - they're connected through the iLO, not directly through USB. If the iLO is restarted for any reason, ESXi will lose access to the SD card until the server is rebooted. It's not that huge a problem (I've had ESXi hosts run for months without access to their boot volume) but it's something to be aware of.
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I have not had good experiences with high end and low end flash memory but I have never had one in  a server before now. I'm okay with the high price as long as they can be trusted. One thing that made me doubt using one of these chips is the fact that some servers use dual flash chips for redundancy. Which for me is like saying, yeah they do fail enough to need to raid them. I'm assuming I should buy a backup chip and clone the original each time we make any new changes?
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