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vStart 100 and 200 Reference Architecture
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the size of the virtual memory of the VM and additional capacity for any snapshots of the VM.
Depending on the environment, one may decide to create multiple ~500 GB volumes with multiple VMs.
It is important to include space for the guest operating system memory cache, snapshots, and VM
configuration files when sizing these volumes. Additionally, one can configure thin-provisioned volumes
to grow on demand only when additional storage is needed for those volumes. Thin provisioning can
increase the efficiency of storage utilization.
With each volume created and presented to the servers, additional iSCSI sessions are initiated. When
planning the solution, it is important to understand that group and pool limits exist for the number of
simultaneous iSCSI sessions. For more information, refer to the current EqualLogic Firmware (FW)
Release Notes. FW Release Notes are available at the EqualLogic Support site
https://support.equallogic.com/secure/login.aspx.
5.3.4 Storage Array RAID Considerations
The storage array RAID configuration is highly dependent on the workload in your virtual environment.
The EqualLogic PS series storage arrays support four RAID types: RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10, and RAID 50.
The RAID configuration will depend on workloads and customer requirements. In general, RAID 10
provides the best performance at the expense of storage capacity.
RAID 10 generally provides better performance in random I/O situations, and requires additional
overhead in the case of a drive failure scenario. RAID 50 generally provides more usable storage, but
has less performance than RAID 10. RAID 5 provides the most storage capacity at the expense of lower
performance and availability than RAID 10. RAID 6 provides better data protection than RAID 5 or 50.
For more information on configuring RAID in EqualLogic, refer to the white paper, How to Select the
Correct RAID for an EqualLogic SAN, available at
http://www.EqualLogic.com/resourcecenter/assetview.aspx?id=8071.