Newbie - Starwind installation advice

[hedon]

Hi

I’m a new to iSCSI SAN & would like some advice after reading some of the documentation I am a bit confused. The iSCSI SAN is for a home test lab so I can try some of the features of Vsphere 4 (ESXi 4 U2). I see from the system requirements that Starwind recommends a min Xenon 5620, the server I have available has older hardware (see below). What I am confused about is it better to install Starwind on a VM (2008R2) running ESXi 4 U2 (OS) or to do the install on a physical server running 2008R2 as the OS

For those that have both Vsphere 4/5 & Starwind experience any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated on the best way to build and configure the SAN


1. Can I build an iSCSI SAN with the G5 configuration below using the newest free version of Starwinds?

2. Is it better to build a Starwinds SAN by installing it on a 2008 R2(VM Hosted on ESXi 4.1 U1- RAID 1) or Install it on a physical server with 2008R2 as the OS?

3. What specifics qualify one installation type better than the other?

SAN Server
HP DL380 G5
Xenon 5160 (Dual Core) X 2
16 GB RAM
P400/512 BBWC RAID Controller
2 x GB NICS
Dual PSU

Hard Drive configuration
2x 63 GB SAS HD (currently installed OS – ESXi 4.1 U1 - RAID 1)
6 x 146 GB SAS HD (880 GB approx. available for the SAN, not yet RAID configured)


Regards

Bob

[Anatoly (staff)]

Hello hedon,

Welcome on StarWind boat Sir

OK, I`ll answer your questions one-by one

1.Can I build an iSCSI SAN with the G5 configuration below using the newest free version of Starwinds?

Yes, your hadware could be better, to be honest, but I would definitely gave a shot to run StarWind on it. you are always welcomed to download our software from your customers page that you can find by using the link below:
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/customer-page

2.Is it better to build a Starwinds SAN by installing it on a 2008 R2(VM Hosted on ESXi 4.1 U1- RAID 1) or Install it on a physical server with 2008R2 as the OS?

It is highly recommended to run StarWind on physical machines.

3.What specifics qualify one installation type better than the other?

our software was designed to run on physical servers, not in VSA mode.

As far as I understand you will have only one server for storage, correct? If yes then I must tell you that you will not be able to use HA and Mirroring features of our storage since both of them require two servers in configuration.

You probably will have some question like "How much VMs can I store on what target size?". I would strongly suggested to refer questions like this to VMware Best Practices (to the vendor of your hypervisor or application that will use storage provided by our software).


Regards

Bob