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Currently in my work environment, ESX uses NetApp NFS shares for its datastores. We're going to begin provisioning block storage from a VMAX to ESX clusters and I wondered if anyone could share any best practices or guidelines for using VMAX luns with ESX.
Questions that come to mind are around lun size and type, thin provisioning and storage management on the ESX host. Is it best to limit the size of luns intended to be used as datastore luns, like 2T striped meta for example. Should thin provisioning be done at the ESX host, array or both?
Any info is appreciated.
Thanks,
Vic
sauravrohilla
859 Posts
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Posted August 5th, 2014 22:00
the way we do it in our environment (should be the best practice) :
1) 2 TB - 512 bytes is the max lun size you can present to ESXi. We keep it to 1.88 TB max in our envn.
2) We go with striped meta (thin provisioning) and that's the best practice i guess.
3) Thin provisioning at Storage and thin/lazy zero at ESXi side.
4) Eager zero only for FT and some other machines..
5) We have fast vp enabled so no SDRS configured at ESXi.
regards,
Saurabh
WorldPolice
123 Posts
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Posted August 6th, 2014 05:00
Yes, shameless plug but keep the TechBook handy for best practices on using VMware with VMAX, including thin on thin:
http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/solution-overview/h2529-vmware-esx-svr-w-symmetrix-wp-ldv.pdf