Keep all user data on an ecrypted VHDX

[Trapper]

Hello,

 

If a school had migrated all it's data (H: drives, Shared, DSL stuff, basically any document) from a physical RAID array to a MS VHD what could be the consequences of that?

 

My pre-1999 thinking on suck issues causes an immediate reaction of "WHAT IF ONE BYTE IS CORRUPTED! HOW WILL YOU ACCESS IT!!!" etc.

 

Is this becoming common and best practice?

[FN-GM]

I think this has been the norm for a long time. I have seen it this way (both VHDX and Vmware equivalent) for around 10 years.

[Trapper]

Well that makes me feel old!

 

Be assured

[Arthur]

If a school had migrated all it's data (H: drives, Shared, DSL stuff, basically any document) from a physical RAID array to a MS VHD what could be the consequences of that?

Wouldn't the virtual disk(s) themselves be stored on some form of redundant storage so bad sectors won't affect the VHDXs?

 

WHAT IF ONE BYTE IS CORRUPTED!

Restore from backup? [emoji846]

[Chris_Cook]

I don't think you lose much by making it virtual. It depends how you implement it though. Assuming in both cases you have it on a raid array I can't see any real difference in the risk of corruption. There may be some performance cost if its not locally attached, but its perfectly workable.

 

On the other hand, you get some big gains.

 

Backup + replication can be better with the likes of Veeam etc.

 

You can also re-attach the vhdx to another virtual server if your original server develops a problem. That's much harder to do with a physical server + array. Once its virtual, you don't have to worry about matching raid controllers and disks etc. You can even stick the vhds on a new host and boot it.

 

If you have the ability to do live migrations, then you can also do some hardware maintenance and upgrades with less downtime.

 

Adding space to a drive is much easier as you can extend the vhds whilst the server is still running.

[TwistedHelixis]

Working in multiple schools and having data corrupt on both types of systems, I would far rather it corrupted on a VM setup then the alternative none VM system.