New Server - SAN or DAS

[ikhantt]

Hey guys!

so i want to advise on how to move forward with my company's virtualized infrastructure. 

currently we have 3 hosts that connect to a SAN for VM storage ( about 5 TB in Raid 5) all hardware is over 7years old and we are using VMware for virtualization.

I am at max capacity wrt RAM and storage. CPU usage is minimal. and the SAN is at capacity for adding HD's.

So i need to upgrade my infrastructure at this time. of course $$$$ is a limitation but i can get it done in a phased approach. 

 

Honestly i have minimal experience with SAN's so my 1st thought is to get new hosts, 1 this FY and 1 next FY use DAS for VM storage and use the SAN as redundant storage. 

 

what do you guys think?

 

 

[unijab]

Don't you have free ports on your San switch, add another SAN box.

[leadeater]

Either stick with SAN storage or use NFS for the datastores, DAS is not ideal and doesn't allow for any HA of your VMs or to easily move them between hosts if you do not have an ESXi license that gives you HA.

[ikhantt]

13 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Either stick with SAN storage or use NFS for the datastores, DAS is not ideal and doesn't allow for any HA of your VMs or to easily move them between hosts if you do not have an ESXi license that gives you HA.

I was actually weighing moving to Hyper V, but that is another conversation.

 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, ikhantt said:

I was actually weighing moving to Hyper V, but that is another conversation.

I wouldn't, like it's fine but not better than ESXi. Main benefit is when you don't have any proper ESXi/vCenter licenses as you get Live Migration as standard with Hyper-V unlike VMware. Had to support both before, most of the really big downsides or odd things have been fixed/improved now.

 

If you go with Hyper-V you can use SMB3 as the backend which also means you can use this same storage array/controller for all your network shares rather than using file server VMs etc.

[ikhantt]

one of my major considerations is support costs for vmware, and minor consideration is i use Azure for Site recovery and its a bit more complex with VMware vs Hyper V. 

 

i dont currently have HA Vmware licenses. 

[ikhantt]

22 hours ago, unijab said:

Don't you have free ports on your San switch, add another SAN box.

its ether channel switch over copper. and its currently full.

 

[Jarsky]

On 11/29/2019 at 3:20 AM, ikhantt said:

and the SAN is at capacity for adding HD's.

 

can you add another switch?

[ikhantt]

i didn't want to over complicate my infrastructure. its just 20 of us.

but yes that is an option.

 

let me look at the current config and get some more info.

 

[Jonny_IT_IE]

On 11/28/2019 at 8:09 PM, ikhantt said:

I was actually weighing moving to Hyper V, but that is another conversation.

 

100% do this! you can show a saving to your FD and that will offset some of your project costs.

I would also be looking at just adding new disks and or a new storage array for your SAN. one think to note though is I would be prepared for great failure if the disks are 7 years old at this stage.