Aug 02, 2013  Sounds like software RAID to me, and you really don't have a RAID 1 volume. Dell Software RAID requires Windows. Check which RAID controller you have, but my gut says you don't really have RAID 1.

Is there a reason that you are using ESXi Free here? VMware ESXi is some good stuff, but rarely applicable in the SMB market and when using the free version you give up essentially all benefits of ESXi and all of the benefits of its competitors. There are several excellent, totally free enterprise choices - in fact, ESXi Free is really the only free enterprise hypervisor that doesn't really make any sense except in the most unique of circumstances. KVM, Hyper-V and Xen all make excellent choices for the SMB market and are all completely free.

KVM and Xen both support software RAID exactly as you need here. I used this because we are running a server to drive an I.P based PA system.

The vile used for this is a OVF virtual appliance running some sort of debian/linux. They said Hyper-V, etc were not supported for this and thus use ESXI. And as long as I have the resources I decided setup a new server and get rid of the legacy box that is ONLY doing DHCP for our I.P phones, so that is another VM on this system.

In the future I may use ESXI again to host a Cisco prime VM, the admin got VMware desktop for it, but it don't seem to work i'm thinking partly due to not using ESXI like it was made for. Total this would be 2 servers, 3 VMs. 2/3 VMs need VMware to work correctly. Compman wrote: In the future I may use ESXI again to host a Cisco prime VM, the admin got VMware desktop for it, but it don't seem to work i'm thinking partly due to not using ESXI like it was made for. Total this would be 2 servers, 3 VMs. 2/3 VMs need VMware to work correctly. For VMware to work as intended: • You don't use the free version.

ESXi 'works' for free, but it is never meant to be used that way. • ESXi requires hardware RAID.

So you need licensing and proper hardware. Then ESXi is totally valid.

Catalogue yvert et tellier. NetworkNerd wrote: Scott Alan Miller wrote: compman wrote: They said Hyper-V, etc were not supported for this and thus use ESXI. There are four potential choices. Two of which are options for you, two of which are not. Their logic that Hyper-V doesn't work is correct, their logic that Hyper-V not being an option leads you to Vmware ESXi is totally wrong.

I think you can attribute much of this to the vendor steering the end user of the technology to the hypervisors on which their virtual appliance is supported.I can attribute their target, but not their statement. If they were being competent and honest, they would have admitted that they had no solution for the client and that they were only supported on a platform that didn't meet the clients needs (read: aren't supported at all) if that were the case. Compman wrote: I am curious if it possible without a RAID controller to have ESXI do mirroring of 2 HDDs. This is a simple deployment with 2 VMs, ESXI, VM storage all on one disk. Can ESXI mirror 2 disks in RAID1 without a controller? It can do mirroring between hosts using vSAN, but no, locally you would use a raid controller. Given these only cost a few hundred dollars and can handle things like automating the rebuilds, managing hot Add, intelligently managing error tracking to determine if it's time to PDL a drive, and the ability to surface this to the UI through CIM, as well as out of band (and redfish) as well as manage drive locator blinking through SES protocol it's a fairly decent expense vs.

Implementing a half assed local RAID system that can't do 1/2 the things I've mentioned and require you manually kludge 2-3 things together. Scott Alan Miller wrote:You mean software RAID? No, VMware ESXi does not support software RAID in any version. If you need VMware, you need hardware RAID, it's simply a choice made when you decide on VMware. Technically my vSAN cluster is using HBA's in pass through. There are other SDS systems that can consume drive by pass through and do data protection (SIO being one of them). Scott Alan Miller wrote: KVM and Xen both support software RAID exactly as you need here.

You would really recommend MDRAID for a single standalone server? I'd rather have something that's idiot proof (See drive light go red, swap drive, get out of band email notifications and can be setup in 5 minutes of idiot proof clicking). Scott Alan Miller wrote: Is there a reason that you are using ESXi Free here?

VMware ESXi is some good stuff, but rarely applicable in the SMB market and when using the free version you give up essentially all benefits of ESXi and all of the benefits of its competitors. There are several excellent, totally free enterprise choices - in fact, ESXi Free is really the only free enterprise hypervisor that doesn't really make any sense except in the most unique of circumstances.