ESXi

Hi, I plan to run ESXi 4 on 1 server using Dell R710 2 Quadcore intel with 24G RAM configured with 6x15K SAS on RAID-10, the I will run no more than 4 VM on this server using local storage only with no SAN, the current SAS raid controller is PERC 6/i that has 256MB of cache, I would like to know if I use PERC 6/e and upgrade the cache to 512MB will that help with IOPs and performance, all VM will run web server.

Adding cache will very likely help your IOPs, but are you really IO bound on a web server? thats somewhat uncommon...

--Matt

VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek

Thanks Matt, what kind of performance boost will I likely to see? I'm trying to determine if the upgrade is worth it on such small deployment of only 4 VMs.

I agree with Matt, it will make very litle if any difference. That array should be good for something like 1500 IOPS which will easilly sustain much more than four web servers. Just check it has the battery (to enable write caching), although I think that's standard with the 6i anyway.

Please award points to any useful answer.