Proposed Whitebox build...comments?

[KellyOlivier]

Hey all,

I am starting a whitebox build, and am wondering if I could get comments on this setup.

Intel DP45SG - this nic should work, and I am going to try the SATA; otherwise buy a Perc 5i card.

Q6700 Quad Core

3 Intel EXPI9300PT nics

4 1.5TB drives - (Raid 5 for Datastore)

2 80GB drives - (Raid 1 for 3i)

8GB DDR3 RAM

I want to use an appliance to "access" the datastore by iSCSI. Will an openfiler or like VM have to run from the local vmfs to do this? After the 1st build is successful I will order another minus drives for an HA cluster, but I want to make sure this arrangement will suffice for my datastore.Comments? Sorry, I know there is a million of these thread, but I have been reading whitebox sites, blogs and threads for weeks and not finding what I want am just gonna kick the bucket and order some stuff.

Thanks.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

I'd check the MB on the whitebox list here - www.vm-help.com (and there's a couple links to other whitebox lists as well). There an article on hardware that I would also look and check to see if the NICs would be recognized. I use Intel Pro 1000 GTs in my whiteboxes.

For your storage ESXi will only be able to see LUNs up to 2 TB in size. I'm not sure if the Perc5i can do this, but with some controllers you can create multiple arrays across the same drives that way you can still go with RAID 5, but you would end up with 3 less than instead of one 4.5 TB LUN. I would also skip the RAID 1 for ESXi. The load by the vmkernel is very low so it won't be an issue to have those on the Perc array.

So you want to create an iSCSI LUN in a VM that will be on the Perc array? It will work, but the one downside is reboots. When ESXi will reboot, it will try to bring up the datastores before it starts the VMs, but in this case the datastore will be available only once the VM comes up. Anyways VMs on the datastore will be orphaned but you just recan your storage and it'll all work out. You could run something on a 3rd box if you have it (ie. have the perc and storage in it) and then just have 2 ESXi host with a single 80 GB drive (or you could boot ESXi from a flash drive.

[KellyOlivier]

I forgot about the 2TB thing. I may have to do RAID10 instead or just buy less disks or smaller sizes. I will boot from usb, thats no problem. I know those nics work so no worries there. Anybody else using this board?

[Banzinho]

Hi Kelly,

Have you succeeded on the install with de DP45SG?? I'm trying and trying with no success..

I've tried the guide on http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/ESXi_install_to_IDE_drive/ESXi_install_to_IDE_drive.php

I get this message:

Manufacturer: Aborted

Model: Aborted

Service Tag: Aborted

Drive configuration is in Native/IDE

Thanks

[KellyOlivier]

I never used it. Look for another whitebox post I had for the system I used. It worked great though!