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We're currently experiencing some significant cpu/ram performance issues with 2 VM's on our current HPE 2015 tower server (2x Xeon 8c/8t 1.7ghz) running server 2012 for HV and guests (10 guests total), so we're looking at getting a HPE DL325 1x 8c/16t Epyc 3.2ghz with server 2016 or 2019 HV and fresh installs for the two guests in question.

The new server is sata only with just 4x LFF bays so a big raid 10 array with cheaper sas drives (like in our tower server) isn't really an option, so to maximize performance cheaply we're looking at 2x enterprise-grade ssd's, whether HPE branded or maybe samsung/intel.

Our main goal is reliability/redundancy, so would 2x 1TB SSD drives in Raid 1 be reliable/performant enough in this case? I'm thinking partition the disk so the server 2016/2019HV (~128GB) is on one, and the two vm guests on another (~812GB).

This server comes with HPE Smart Array S100i SR Gen10 SW RAID, should we just ignore that and spring for a current/last gen hardware raid card? Is SW raid just not that reliable enough?

We are on a tight budget (hence the HPE DL325 choice), plus we're a small biz, any tips/guidance for a reliable cheap configuration would be much appreciated.

Joe
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Our main goal is reliability/redundancy, so would 2x 1TB SSD drives in Raid 1 be reliable/performant enough in this case?

Reliable enough for what? Define that first.

RAID1 would protect you against a single disk failure but doesn't protect you against any other type of host failure.

I'm thinking partition the disk so the server 2016/2019HV (~128GB) is on one, and the two vm guests on another (~812GB).

Don't. Just don't. This doesn't provide any benefit and only serves to make things more complex than they need to be. If you want to separate your Hyper-V install from your VM storage then use separate storage altogether.

joeqwerty
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  • I would agree with every word. Just to add, in case you want redundancy you should add proper backup solution to your infrastructure in addition to RAID. Another thing to consider is to think about implementing HA to the infrastructure. – Stuka Oct 24 '20 at 23:52
  • Appreciate your reply, after more research it looks like we'll do two raid 1 arrays, one for the windows hyper-v on small cheap enterprise grade sata hdd's, and then the other array for the vm's on ssd's. My biggest concern was slow hdd's for the hypervisor (windows server full os) might impact the VM performance, but it looks like that's not the case at all. – Joe Oct 25 '20 at 20:13