HA advice needed

peekay · Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:47 pm

We presently have a single Starwind server running with a single ESX 4. We are considering adding a second HA unit or perhaps a less-than-hot standby due to limitied budget. The idea is to put together a lower performance (low cost) StarWind server that can either mirror or be synced to the production unit.

Does anyone have any advice and/or experience to share?

Constantin (staff) · Wed Mar 24, 2010 1:30 pm

So, you want to use one fast and one slow servers for HA?

peekay · Thu Mar 25, 2010 2:37 pm

Not necessarily "slow" but not as performfing as the production unit. Use two cores, not four, use a 4 disk RAID5 with 7200RPM drives, etc.

JLaay · Fri Mar 26, 2010 7:28 am

Hi Peekay,

Am I right you want to have HA with virtualized servers connected to fastest IO Starwind SAN and in case the fastest SAN crashes for whatever reason MPIO to slower SAN?

Will save you probably lots on casing, CPU, but above all disks (SAS) $$$ .

Be sure to calculate the IO penalty though and warn your boss up front

Greetz Jaap

Constantin (staff) · Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:46 am

Begin your trial right now, and then you`ll be able to upgrade to version with cache for HA devices, to speed up IOPS!