Server Reconfigure - Best Options?

[robyholmes]

Hi All,

 

I'm got multiple problems with my current server configuration and I'm looking to re-configure it to hopefully solve these. First, this is the current setup:

2x Host Servers (Data Center licences and multiple VMs)

1x Host Server (Standard licence running a SIMS VM & some test clients)

1x Physical File Server (Standard licence)

1x Physical DC (Standard Licence)

 

The issues I have with this setup are:

• Host Servers using Hyper-V replication which often stops, fills up the disks and all the VM's pause
  
• The physical file server was syncing to a VM file server using DFSR but its screwed up and won't repair. I get the feeling the physical file server is at fault
  

 

The servers specs are:

Host A - Dell R430, 2x Intel E5-2623, 64GB RAM, 3x 1.2TB SAS 10K in RAID 5 - Server 2016 Data center

Host B - HP SE316M1, 2x Intel X5650, 48GB RAM, 2x 150GB SAS 10K in RAID 1 & 6x 300GB SAS 10K in RAID 5 - Server 2012 R2 Data Center

Host C - Dell R420, 1x Intel E5-2420, 16GB RAM, 5x 300GB SAS 15K in RAID 5 - Server 2012 R2 Standard

File - Dell R420, 2x Intel E5-2407, 16GB RAM, 2x 140GB SAS 15K in RAID 1 & 3x 1TB SAS 7.2K in RAID 5 - Server 2012 R2 Standard

DC - Dell R210 II, Intel E3-1220 V2, 8GB RAM, 2x 300GB SAS 15K in RAID 1 - Server 2012 R2 Standard

 

We have 14 VM servers running various roles, with one exam server which only gets switched on during the exams. Our two host servers cope with these fine. School is a very small secondary school with around 300 students. So we're not dealing with very high loads.

 

I'd like to hear you thoughts on how best to setup the above. I'll give you might first thoughts:

 

First I thought Storage Spaces Direct would suite nicely, but we don't have 10Gbps cards or matching storage drives.

So I started to look at Storage Replica, which it seems is replacing Hyper-V replication and DFSR? I might be wrong on that front but from a bit of reasearch last night that's the feeling I got. With Server 2016 it requires a datacenter licence which would cause us a problem but 2019 is set to bring it to Standard as well. With some limits but we fit inside these.

 

So I'm thinking:

Host A & Host B are setup with storage replica to sync all the VM's between both hosts.

File & Host C both become phsyical file servers using storage replica to hold all our data. DFS means clients can use either server.

DC says as is.

 

We wouldn't get automatic failover on the VMs, but we don't have that now and we can't archive it without a lot more investment.

 

So let me have your thoughts? Would this work or do you have a better idea?

 

Thanks, Rob

[robyholmes]

No offers anyone? Not sure if that's good or bad.