I've dabbled with virtualization for a few years now, but must admit up front that I am new to the world of ESXi.
Our company is wanting to replace 4 aging servers with a new beefier setup running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64. After doing some research and referencing the ESXi 4 HCL listing, we deciding to pick up the following server off the HCL:
ASUS RS700-E6/RS4
2 x Intel Xeon E5520 Nehalem 2.26GHz LGA 1366
8 x CORSAIR 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 ECC
3 x Western Digital RE3 WD1002FBYS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
The server hardware isn't bad. I know it's not the greatest, but it's more than enough to meet our needs.
So here's the issue: I can't seem to get the ESXi software to detect the RAID array that has been setup. I've tried using RAID 5/10 configurations, and for the life of me, cannot get the software to detect the hard drives as one singular disk. When the installer runs, it asks which one of the physical disks to install to, rather than install to the array. This is quite annoying, as we need this setup for redundancy (in the event of a tragic failure. The server uses the following controller tech:
SATA Controller:
Intel® ICH10R:
6 SATA2 300MB/s ports
Intel Matrix Storage (for Windows only)
(Support software RAID 0, 1, 10 & 5)
LSI® MegaRAID (for Linux/Windows)
(Support software RAID 0, 1, 10)
SAS Controller:
Optional:
ASUS PIKE 1064E 4-port SAS RAID card
Asus PIKE 1078 8-port SAS HW RAID card
Currently, I am using the built in software initiated RAID (onboard). Is it necessary to use Hardware RAID for proper detection?
Does anyone have experience with this?