Install Esxi Software Raid Linux
So I just bought 2x2TB drives to set up a RAID1 so that I have some fault-tolerance in my system and while the setup of the raid array within the motherboard utility (mobo is a Gigabyte MX31-BS0 server board) was a snap, I cant get my existing ESXi install to recognize it as a single drive.it just see's both of the drives indivually. Does ESXi really not support what appears to be software based raid?
I would need an additional PCIe controller then? Note that it appears my RAID controller (or at least the RAID setup utility) is 'Intel' v4.3.x.If thats the case, is there another way I can easily perform a backup of data? So right now I have several VM's taking up about 1TB of data on a drive. These additional drives (2TB's each) could serve as a manual backup storage instead of RAID but how would I go about doing that?Just looking for some experts thoughts. Still new to both RAID setups and ESXi:). The Ubuntu installer has support for this OOTB.
Software Raid Linux
I also used this method manually on Gentoo. If you are familiar with linux md it's should be doable.One thing i unforunately cannot comment on what will happen if a drive actually breaks. I'd suppose you'd have to remove the volume from the guest in ESXi, but the guest should continue running, even if it crashes, at least the data on drive should be okay.Also if you transfer the VMs to different host on dont need the RAID1 anymore, removing one volume from the guest does not do harm. Ubuntu complains a bit while booting or upgrading the kernel but works perfectly fine.
ESXi does not support software RAID cards in RAID mode-period (so it says in the docs) it certainly didn't support my PERC SAS 6/ir or PERC S300. That is why I'm now using 2x PERC SAS 6/ir in IT mode as plain HBAs.You either need to look at setting up a VM to manage them and run software RAID or look at a hardware-based RAID controller.Or be extra ghetto and follow bad advice: set up VMFS datastores on each drive, create matching disks for your OS on each and use software RAID 1 in the OS to mirror onto each datastore.