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So the plan is to convert 4 boxed servers into all virtual servers with a new server. The 4 servers now don't require much horsepower to do much, so only looking at the Xeon E5-2470 (8C, 2.4ghz, iirc) and 48GB of memory.

Anyways, my question is, would it be wise to or possible to put the OS's of the 4 virtual servers onto a single SSD (and a 2nd for mirroring).

3 of the 4 current servers have a secondary drive in them used for storage (for network shares almost exclusively) and I was curious if it would be possible to put just a 4TB drive (and a 2nd for mirroring) in the physical ESXi server and have all 4 of the virtual servers use this as a 2nd logical drive (i.e. drive "D") and have it set up almost the same way as it is now on the current servers.

It sounds semi confusing typing this out, so if anyone can offer assistance and needs clarification, please ask.

Or, if someone can suggest a better solution(s), please do. I'm all ears.

Thank you in advance.

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This wouldn't be a terrible idea, assuming you get SSDs that are rated for the type of use you need them for. I'd assume that not requiring much "horsepower" means both CPU and disk I/O, so there'd be no need to splurge on SLC drives.

Are you planning to buy a server from a vendor, or build one yourself?

If you don't buy vendor-certified SSDs (or you build your own), keep in mind that there is little-to-no support for TRIM on server RAID controllers. That means you'll want an SSD with built-in garbage collection (e.g. Intel SSDs with SandForce controller).

You might consider 2 servers (perhaps just keep one of the old 4 around) so you have a 2nd hypervisor to run VMs on in case your new server experiences any major problems.

And if you don't already have a backup solution in place... now might be a good time to implement one.

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  • Hi. I was looking at getting one through our Dell rep. An R320 (4 drive bays). All the drives would be purchased outside of Dell, though. I will look into the Intel SF ones, but the two to FTP servers we just got,
    – Kevin A
    Apr 22, 2015 at 21:13
  • I opted for the Samsung 850 Pros for the OS (mirrored in each) and 1TB for storage (also mirrored). For backups, we have a Barracuda backup device that backs up all our servers. System States and any important data/files. I am just unsure if Hyper-V or ESXi can utilize the 4TB drive as a 'secondary' drive in each of the 4 virtual servers. Also, to note, I am opting for larger 7.2k SATA drives, as there doesn't need to be much IOPS on these drives.One server is a DC, one for Symantec EP, another for GoAnywhere Director,and the last runs a super small LAMP application along with storing files.
    – Kevin A
    Apr 22, 2015 at 21:16
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ESXi and HyperV would both allow you to utilize the spindle drives for a "D" data drive with ease - just store a 2nd virtual disk on those drives, presented to each VM. Server 2012 R2 also offers Storage Spaces, with which you could configure both SSDs and 7.2K drives with "tiering", which would allow for "hot" data to be auto-tiered to the SSDs regardless of what "drive letter" the blocks belong to. I'm not sure how expensive VM replication is with ESX (don't recall if SRM is the only way to do it), but HyperV also includes replication support, which I've found to be very easy to use for keeping a 2nd copy of each VM ready to bring online in case a physical box or cluster has issues.

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