DiskBridge Best Practices

[dmuegge]

Hello, thanks for providing the forum.

Question.

When using the disk bridge feature how is it recommended to prepare the disk, should you?

Let Windows write a disk signature?
Create a partition?
Format the partition?

Thanks,

Dave

[Robert (staff)]

Dave,

For DiskBridge it is recommended to use blank unformatted hard drive or a partition, however, you can use a formatted drive or a partition as well.

Thanks.

[dmuegge]

Robert,

What about the disk signature?

The reason I ask this is one of the tests I am doing is trying to recover the data on the existing volumes after a reinstallation. I tried using raw disks in the first run of this test and was not able to remount the volume and access the VMFS volume anfter an OS rebuild and starwind reinstall.

A little background. I am testing starwind for use with a Dev/Test implementation of ESX 4. I am trying to determine the best device type to use for our situation and the trade offs.

Any insight is certainly appreaciated.

Thanks for your help,

Dave

[Robert (staff)]

Dave,

DiskBridge uses Windows disk signatures.
In case you are implementing the scenario of re-mounting the target after an OS re-install it is better to use image file devices. The image files can be easily accessed once starwind has been installed.

Thanks.