Virtual Machine storage

[dweberwr]

I am wondering what the best way is to store virtual machines on an iscsi target. Is it better to create a separate volume for each virtual machine or one big volume for all of them?

[webguyz]

We use Hyper-V and just create a single large volume for each server and store the .vhd's on that. Doing it this way gives you the ability to move vhd's around if needed. Also less headache when having to deal with the number of volumes on the DSS. Might not be as fast as doing passthru straight to a volume on DSS, but manageability is much better. Also, you lose a few abilities with Hyper-v like being able to export volumes, etc when doing passthru SCSI.

[enealDC]

By using more targets, you can increase performance. I'm putting the finishing touches on a Hyper-V cluster with three 2TB volumes and a 50GB volume served from a DSS Failover Pair.

There are some disadvantages though. You can potentially waste space and DSS warns you about failover/failback being slower being of the increased number of resources..

[dweberwr]

At this time I am not concerned with clustering and automatic failover if that makes a difference, although it is an option I am entertaining in the future if the budget allows(which it probably won't).