I'm trying to work out how best to configure storage for a new Hyper-V based setup. I will be running a single Hyper-V host with approx 6 VMs to begin with. One of these VMs will be a Server 2012 file server, I'm am trying to work out how I should provide it with the disk that it will then serve to its clients.
I have the following storage hardware:
- Hardware Raid 6 - 8 * 2TB arranged as one large volume, I have some very large files (60GB+) and don't have a logical way of dividing them, hence one 12TB volume.
- Directly attached 500GB SSD for VM boot disks
- Directly attached 320GB Hyper-V host boot drive.
I have come across the following options:
- Place RAID in the Hyper-V box, create a 12TB VHDX in the raid volume, add this to the file server VM.
- Place RAID in Hyper-V box, configure 12TB volume as a passthrough to the file server VM.
- Attach RAID to another box and provide the 12TB volume as an IScsi target and get the file server VM to attach to it
As I see it the 12TB VHDX is just not practical, I don't have the resources to create a new 12TB volume to hold the new VHDX and then copy the data across to it. Once I've copied the data across I'm left with a 12TB file which will be a nightmare to move around if/when I need to. I'm concerned about having all eggs in one 12TB basket, if the file system holding it goes wrong then all the data is lost.
I would go the ISCSI route, except that the Windows ISCSI target only supports virtual disks, so I'd be in the same boat, so I'd have to get hold of another ISCSI target, the other windows ones are expensive or slightly 'untested' looking. The Linux alternatives give me headaches with NTFS support, and as I said I don't have the resources to copy everything to a new Linux filesystem volume.
So I'm left with pass through disks, these generally seem to be discouraged, and I understand why, but can anyone come up with some answers to the problems I list above. If anyone can answer my fears about a 12TB file being unmanageable, then I could
look into creating the 12TB VHDX as a dynamic disk so that the 12TB extra free space is not required during transition.