ESX, how'd you set you LUNs up.

[K.C.Leblanc]

I'm setting up ESX with two server and a SAN. Out storage array is an HP 2012fc with 12x 450gb 15k drives.

One big lun, or loads of different ones? I'm thinking just the one, since I'll get better performance with the data spread accross more drives. What did you do?

EDIT: Could a kind passing Mod please change the thread title to "ESX, how'd you set your LUNs up?" Ta

[Duke]

When I was doing testing I just used one LUN for all my VMs. It would certainly be easier to manage, and if you're doing compression/de-dupe and your filer can only do it per LUN or share then you'd only really see the benefits by having all of the VMs in the same LUN/share.

I think I'd definitely consider different LUNs for each 'area' of VMs, so maybe one for the datacenter machines, one for development machines, one for testing machines, one for machines which users have direct access to, etc.

Not sure what the official best practice is on this really, and does the same apply if you're using NFS rather than iSCSI?

Cheers,
Chris

[Theblacksheep]

It can get very complicated, but not one big one.... I use around 5-10 for servers depending on their load. VDI loads more.

it also depends on what version of ESX... 3.5 or 4?

Max amount of VMs per VMFS volume » Yellow Bricks

VMFS/LUN size? » Yellow Bricks