Guys, good morning.
Some time ago I set up 2 Windows Server 2012 R2 to run Hyper-V. As I had problems with RAID in my old virtualization platform, I decided not to use RAID for redundancy, I used hyper-v replication instead.
My set up is as follows:
1 server with Hyper-V (64Gb RAM and eight 2TB disks each)
2 server with Hyper-V (64Gb RAM and eight 2TB disks each)
All VMs from one server are replicated on the other, using the Hyper-VReplica Feature. It worked well for a while, but I started having problems with several I/O errors, replicas sync loss and I'm beginning to see flaws in applications on VMs... even backups began to fail. I run checkdisk on some discs and found several errors, so I want to redo this installation in the best possible way.
My question is how is the best to do it ... I will have the following hardware available:
1. Dell R720 - 64Gb of RAM and eight 2TB disks
2. Dell R720 - 64Gb of RAM and eight 2TB disks
3. Dell R720 - 32GB of RAM and eight 2TB disks
4. Dell R720 - 32GB of RAM and eight 2TB disks
5. Dell R410 - 10Gb of RAM and two 1TB disks
6. Dell R410 - 10Gb of RAM and two 1TB disks
7. (I'll still buy) server with enough disks to put the backups of all VMs of all servers.
All servers will be exclusive to run Hyper-V. Servers 5 and 6 are smaller because they will run VMs from a single client.
My questions are:
1. Should I use hardware RAID or Storage Spaces?
I'm currently not using any ... my redundancy depends on replicas of Hyper-V, but I am not liking it very much. If I end up using Storage Spaces, I will make a hardware RAID 1 with two hard drives for the operating system.
2. In either case (hardware RAID or Storage Spaces), do you recommend RAID 1 or RAID 5?
With RAID 5 I don't lose as many disks ... but the writing speed is slower. Anyone who has used RAID 5 know if it's too slow?
3. What other recommendations can you give me?
Thank you
Rafael
Some time ago I set up 2 Windows Server 2012 R2 to run Hyper-V. As I had problems with RAID in my old virtualization platform, I decided not to use RAID for redundancy, I used hyper-v replication instead.
My set up is as follows:
1 server with Hyper-V (64Gb RAM and eight 2TB disks each)
2 server with Hyper-V (64Gb RAM and eight 2TB disks each)
All VMs from one server are replicated on the other, using the Hyper-VReplica Feature. It worked well for a while, but I started having problems with several I/O errors, replicas sync loss and I'm beginning to see flaws in applications on VMs... even backups began to fail. I run checkdisk on some discs and found several errors, so I want to redo this installation in the best possible way.
My question is how is the best to do it ... I will have the following hardware available:
1. Dell R720 - 64Gb of RAM and eight 2TB disks
2. Dell R720 - 64Gb of RAM and eight 2TB disks
3. Dell R720 - 32GB of RAM and eight 2TB disks
4. Dell R720 - 32GB of RAM and eight 2TB disks
5. Dell R410 - 10Gb of RAM and two 1TB disks
6. Dell R410 - 10Gb of RAM and two 1TB disks
7. (I'll still buy) server with enough disks to put the backups of all VMs of all servers.
All servers will be exclusive to run Hyper-V. Servers 5 and 6 are smaller because they will run VMs from a single client.
My questions are:
1. Should I use hardware RAID or Storage Spaces?
I'm currently not using any ... my redundancy depends on replicas of Hyper-V, but I am not liking it very much. If I end up using Storage Spaces, I will make a hardware RAID 1 with two hard drives for the operating system.
2. In either case (hardware RAID or Storage Spaces), do you recommend RAID 1 or RAID 5?
With RAID 5 I don't lose as many disks ... but the writing speed is slower. Anyone who has used RAID 5 know if it's too slow?
3. What other recommendations can you give me?
Thank you
Rafael