ESXi

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  • 1.  Exchange 2007, raw disk or vmdk

    Posted Aug 02, 2010 12:57 PM

    For those running Exchange on Vsphere, wondering if you're using vmdk disks for your msg stores, or raw disks?

    Ours was configured using raw iscsi maps from the Windows 2008 server for our msg stores. I'm not sure what the advantages or disadvantages may be to raw vs vmdk?

    Thanks

    Kevin



  • 2.  RE: Exchange 2007, raw disk or vmdk

    Posted Aug 02, 2010 01:22 PM

    If a virtual disk is configured as an RDM the scsi commands are processed directly by the Guest O.S however if its configured as VMDK the VMkernel layer has to do all the processing.

    Refer to this thread for a detailed discussion about using RDM or VMDK

    If you found this or other information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful".

    f10

    VCP3,VCP4,HP UX CSA



  • 3.  RE: Exchange 2007, raw disk or vmdk

    Posted Aug 02, 2010 01:25 PM

    There is no difference between vmdk and raw in terms of performance.

    VMDK pros:

    1) Truly dynamic - you can migrate it anywhere

    2) You can hot-extend it without downtime

    VMDK cons:

    1) Once you lost VMFS - you lost data also

    2) Can not be used for p-v clusters with shared storage

    RAW pros:

    1) You can connect LUN to any VM or physical machine and get access to data

    2) The only solution for p-v shared storage cluster

    RAW cons:

    1) It's not that dynamic as vmdk


    ---

    MCSA, MCTS Hyper-V, VCP 3/4, VMware vExpert

    http://blog.vadmin.ru



  • 4.  RE: Exchange 2007, raw disk or vmdk

    Posted Aug 02, 2010 02:54 PM

    See also this document:

    Andre