Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup
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Hi,
Thanks to all for the suggestions, comments, feedback , especially Jared... I really appreciate the candour ..
@Dashrender , @DustinB3403 , @JaredBusch - Yes, RAID 10 would be ideal, and will certainly be done in the future .. But, for now, we'll just have to live with 2 arrays of RAID1
Currently, the size of the data is around 1.4TB (not de-dup'ed... once de-dup'ed, may reduce) ... This is what they've accumulated over a period of over 10 years ... I don't see them running out of storage space, for atleast another 8 months to a year
I was told to install 2012 R2, simply because it's a more mature OS, by virtue of it being around for longer .. Infact, I'd prefer working on 2016
I'm not a Powershell expert .. also, we do not have a SCCM licenses.. Remote management will be done from Windows 8x machines, using RDP.. .. Hence, I thought, I'd start-off with 2012 R2 Server ... Once everything on Host server is ready, I am planning on uninstalling the GUI, and downgrading to Server Core ...
On Windows 8x, we use RSAT to manage Windows 2012 Server. Can the same RSAT be used to managed 2016 Server, or Hyper-V 2016 ?
@Dashrender - I've been working remotely, via VPN, and yes, using iLO..
@JaredBusch - Yes, the client has been informed that upgrading to RAID10 later, would mean a complete FFR (which, I'm guess, won't be that big a headache, since we're virtualizing)
@JaredBusch - The reason for creating a separate VHDX just for VSS of data is https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753975(v=ws.11).aspx
Also, I haven't manually or deliberately disabled VSS on the Volume housing the VM Guest OS VHDxs ... VSS was not enabled, by default...
My main reason for installing the full server, is non-familiarity with Powershell, and lack of proper freely available GUI tools, to manage remotely ....
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Well if you still have the option, I'd still start over and install Hyper-V 2016 as the hypervisor - the lack of concern over licensing alone makes that worth it to me (I suppose you could install Hyper-V 2012 if demanded by your boss or the client).
As you saw in JB's post, there are many things in Hyper-V that just have to be done from PowerShell, so there's no reason to shy away from it.
Yes, RSAT will control 2016, you might not be able to manage all features - I'd advice getting a Windows 10 machine to use, create an image of your current machine and see if you can still get a free upgrade - if it activates after the upgrade, you're golden, if not, simply restore your image to 8.1 then plan you purchase of Win10.
I know they told you that they don't want to spend money on two additional drives, but you should really ask them to reconsider - the management of multiple VHDx over multiple storage repositories makes your environment needlessly complex, and very prone to error.
Since you indicated that your data is only 1.4 TB now, perhaps you can just build one VM on the 2 TB array, and the other on the 3 TB array if they still won't spend for the replacement. Just remind them that their basically giving up half their IOPs by keeping these split. This affects performance.
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@dr.funkenstein said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
@Dashrender , @DustinB3403 , @JaredBusch - Yes, RAID 10 would be ideal, and will certainly be done in the future .. But, for now, we'll just have to live with 2 arrays of RAID1
Two arrays is just bad in comparison. The client can't be so incredibly tight on capital that if you told them two arrays of mismatched drives was dangerous, and they still said go ahead anyways.
The growth factor here isn't the critical item. The poor system design is.
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The client's desire to not purchase the correct drives is one of @scottalanmiller's famous sunk cost fallacies.
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@Dashrender said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
Well if you still have the option, I'd still start over and install Hyper-V 2016 as the hypervisor - the lack of concern over licensing alone makes that worth it to me (I suppose you could install Hyper-V 2012 if demanded by your boss or the client).
The following has happened, since my last post ...
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list item We've decided to go-ahead with Windows 2016. Infact, I'm even free to use Hyper-V Server 2016. However, I'm not at all comfortable with working without a GUI.. I don't want to be in situation where I have to Google Powershell commands for even mundane things like creating VHDX files ... Plus, Remote GUI tools such as Hyper-V manager and RSAT (On Windows 8x), are cumbersome to setup, especially when the remote machine is a non-domain machine.. Plus, I'm not sure if Coreconfig works on Hyper-V Server 2016. Any suggestions on how to make remote management easier/smoother ? 5nine Free ?
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list itemI've pushed for RAID 10, once again .. The client has reluctant agree, as long as they don't have you buy new HDDs. I explained to client that I could create a RAID 10 array, even with the existing 2x2TB HDDs, and 2x3TB HDDs, but that would mean that RAID 10 array would take into consideration the size of the smallest HDD. So, it'll be as if the array was created using 4x2TB HDDs, giving them total usable space of around 3.5 - 3.7TB. Around 1.8TB of HDDs space would be unusable, and simply go to waste, thus increasing the cost/GB for storage.. .So, now, I'll get their final decision on this, tomorrow.
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@dr.funkenstein said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
I know that the storage config is rather awkward - The server is brand new, and was purchased with 2x2TB HDD. After it was delivered, the client realized that they required more storage, so they bought an additional 2x3TB HDDs... I'm guessing They opted for 7.2RPM disk, due to cost constrains..
Important to note... whoever made that buying decision is the IT decision maker here and they made the decision to do two RAID 1 arrays. Why did that person get tasked with making that decision? Who knows, that is something to look into. But they are the authority on the server and are making the "tough" technical decisions here. You are just implementing decisions that they made already.
The really big questions to look into are things like "How did they buy a server and extra storage when they didn't have the person who understands the needs involved yet?" This indicates a significant business decision making problem somewhere up the chain. This suggests you have a rogue Head of IT hidden in the organization somewhere, and it might easily be a secretary.
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@dr.funkenstein Welcome to ML mate - I'd add something further but it sounds like you've got it all in hand. Looking forward to seeing you around!
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@MattSpeller said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
@dr.funkenstein Welcome to ML mate - I'd add something further but it sounds like you've got it all in hand. Looking forward to seeing you around!
Thanks for the positive words ..
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@dr.funkenstein said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
@MattSpeller said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
@dr.funkenstein Welcome to ML mate - I'd add something further but it sounds like you've got it all in hand. Looking forward to seeing you around!
Thanks for the positive words ..
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@dr.funkenstein said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
The decision we arrived at is that, for now, they'd prefer to have storage space (Given that there are just 15 users), with the decent'ish redundancy & performance offered by RAID 1
Not sure how the number of users plays into the decision, that bit is unclear. Seems more likely that fifteen users would not generate a lot of storage, but would benefit from a faster system. But the reality is that it probably doesn't matter in either direction.
RAID 1 is not "decentish" reliability (we always care about reliability, never redundancy) it's the most reliable form of RAID, you can't get more reliable. Just important to note, there is no way to get more reliable.
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@dr.funkenstein said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
- Carved-out a 64GB partition on Array1, and installed Windows 2012 r2 Std. (With GUI, as I am a Hyper-V noob. Once I'm acclimatized to Hyper-V, I'll uninstall the GUI) for the host OS.
You don't want a host OS at all, this creates overhead and licensing complications that you could otherwise avoid. It's not the biggest deal, but there are huge reasons that we say that the Hyper-V role should never be used. It's not about GUI vs. no-GUI. It's about a licensed OS versus a minimal control environment.
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@dr.funkenstein said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
- I'm thinking of using VEEAM Free, for back-ups.. The back-up destination would be a Synology NAS box, with a 5TB HDD. Does VSS need to enabled for backups ?
VSS where? Don't mess with VSS on Hyper-V, leave it alone.
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@dr.funkenstein said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
- Is one large 2TB VHDX fine for the data, or should is it recommended to break it up in smaller VHDXs
That's fine, that's not very big in this day and age. That's only the size of the smallest normal server disk for slower storage disks, not large enough to worry about carving up into smaller pieces. Multiple VHDXs become complex to manage.
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@DustinB3403 said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
As already stated in my previous post, address the RAID issue now, RAID1 is safe, RAID10 is safer and faster. Get the client to put in 4 matching drives and go with OBR10.
RAID 10 is marginally less safe, and twice as fast. But nothing can be safer than RAID 1.
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@JaredBusch said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
Now on to your hypervisor. Do not, ever, install Microsoft Server onto the bare metal. Install Hyper-V Server. Period. End of story.
I'm still catching up on the thread but this is such an important point that I'm echoing it, again. You are doing a fresh install, don't start crippled with basic installation mistakes. We know that you are new to virtualization, and we totally understand where there is tonnes of horrible advice out there that would suggest to you that installing Windows and the GUI and then Hyper-V is acceptable, but it is not. The average user of Hyper-V doesn't even know what Hyper-V is, so be wary of loads of very bad advice out there.
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@JaredBusch said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
I get that you are new to setting this up, and it is great that you reached out for advice. But you should not be learning, in production, on a client system FFS.
It's his boss that should be in trouble, or whoever decided to have him learn in that position. Might even be the client demanding it... same client that thinks that they themselves should be in charge of IT and makes some pretty basic day one mistakes like getting mismatched drives and buying gear before knowing the needed specs.
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@scottalanmiller said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
@dr.funkenstein said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
I know that the storage config is rather awkward - The server is brand new, and was purchased with 2x2TB HDD. After it was delivered, the client realized that they required more storage, so they bought an additional 2x3TB HDDs... I'm guessing They opted for 7.2RPM disk, due to cost constrains..
Important to note... whoever made that buying decision is the IT decision maker here and they made the decision to do two RAID 1 arrays. Why did that person get tasked with making that decision? Who knows, that is something to look into. But they are the authority on the server and are making the "tough" technical decisions here. You are just implementing decisions that they made already.
The really big questions to look into are things like "How did they buy a server and extra storage when they didn't have the person who understands the needs involved yet?" This indicates a significant business decision making problem somewhere up the chain. This suggests you have a rogue Head of IT hidden in the organization somewhere, and it might easily be a secretary.
Actually, here's what happened ... The vendor, from where this server was purchased, sold it, with the 2TB HDDs bundled... Currently, the client operates in a workgroup environment, with the data scattered across more than 10 PCs...
When I was assigned this client account, the first thing I did was to ask them to collate all the data, into a central storage repo... Once, they started moving all the files to a centralized storage, the total size of all the files they had shifted, was getting to be well over 2B. So, we ordered another set of 3TB HDDs.. Later, I noticed that a lot of data was from around 7-10 years ago, not really used actively, so shifted it to another storage unit, for archiving...
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@FATeknollogee said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
@JaredBusch said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
Now on to your hypervisor. Do not, ever, install Microsoft Server onto the bare metal. Install Hyper-V Server. Period. End of story.
Does this "rule" also apply to Windows Server 2016 with Hyper-V role enabled?
Absolutely. It applies everywhere, always. There are no exceptions to it.
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@dafyre said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
@FATeknollogee said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
@JaredBusch said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
Now on to your hypervisor. Do not, ever, install Microsoft Server onto the bare metal. Install Hyper-V Server. Period. End of story.
Does this "rule" also apply to Windows Server 2016 with Hyper-V role enabled?
I would suggest yes. Install Hyper-V 2016, and then install your VMs on top of that.
Correct
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@FATeknollogee said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:
Who came up with this rule?
It's one of the most fundamental rules of system design. It's been a rule for centuries. It's just turned into a rule of thumb with Windows because it is an anti-pattern.
Installing the OS adds overhead and risk without benefit. It's complication only for the sake of complication. When two things are equal, simplicity is better than complexity. But in this case, they are not equal. The OS install method brings huge caveats, licensing probably being the biggest.
