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  • 1.  ESXi5 maximum installation partition size

    Posted Dec 06, 2011 03:25 PM

    Hi,

    with version 4, you couldn't install ESX on a partition larger than 2TB because it wasn't able to detect it.

    Am I able to install ESX 5 on a partition larger than 2TB

    Thank you



  • 2.  RE: ESXi5 maximum installation partition size

    Posted Dec 06, 2011 03:31 PM

    Hello.

    "ESXi can boot from a disk larger than 2TB provided that the system firmware and the firmware on any addin card that you are using support it." - from http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-installation-setup-guide.pdf

    Good Luck!



  • 3.  RE: ESXi5 maximum installation partition size
    Best Answer

    Posted Dec 06, 2011 03:32 PM

    Hi

    this should answer your question : http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2011/12/upgraded-vmfs-5-automatic-partition-format-change.html

    Out of interest why are you looking to install ESXi5 on a 2TB partition?

    Gregg



  • 4.  RE: ESXi5 maximum installation partition size

    Posted Dec 06, 2011 03:47 PM

    We will be using 6 internal disks on a RAID 5 array.  With version 4, I had to mirror 2 disks to install ESX and use the 4 remaining disks in a RAID 5 array for the Datastore.  With that setup, I was loosing 2 disks, one for the mirror and one for the parity.

    If with version 5 I can raid all my disk, I only loose one.

    That is a very small system, so cost is an issue.

    Thank you for your answer.



  • 5.  RE: ESXi5 maximum installation partition size

    Posted Dec 06, 2011 04:07 PM

    With ESXi 5 the system partitions require about 5 GB of space.   The I/O requirements are pretty low once ESXi has booted so I'd suggest a single RAID array rather than spliting ESXi onto its own array.



  • 6.  RE: ESXi5 maximum installation partition size

    Posted Dec 06, 2011 04:36 PM

    strich55 wrote:

    .  With that setup, I was loosing 2 disks, one for the mirror and one for the parity.


    Wow one for the mirror AND the parity.. that's amazing since that really isn't possible.. ok yes I knew what you meant.

    Just FYI RAID 5 is fine.. you CAN lose a disk without your RAID going down, so no need to separate Install disks (mirror) from the rest of the VM datastore disks, you will lose performance.

    Make it one BIG RAID 5 (RAID 50 if your RAID supports it)



  • 7.  RE: ESXi5 maximum installation partition size

    Posted Dec 07, 2011 12:15 PM

    RParker wrote:

    strich55 wrote:

    .  With that setup, I was loosing 2 disks, one for the mirror and one for the parity.


    Wow one for the mirror AND the parity.. that's amazing since that really isn't possible.. 

    That seems to be a correct description from strich55. With one RAID1 and one RAID5 volume the size of two disks are used for fault tolerance.