Re: [gentoo-user] VMWare Hypervisor - SD vs CF card?

[Michael Mol]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 7:47 AM, Tanstaafl <tanstaafl@×××××××××××.org> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Ok, here's my dilemma...
>
> I have some new Dell R515 servers (12 bay versions). These do not have any
> Dell supported internal SD (or CF) card options for the hypervisor, but they
> do have an internal 2.5" dual SATA/SAS drive cage, for running a bootable OS
> (in my case the ESXi hypervisor)...
>
> Well, I really hate the idea of wasting money and disk space (for 2 146GB
> SAS drives to be run in a mirror, what is being recommended to me) on
> something that only requires about 32MB to install (the hypervisor) when
> apparently there is a really cool option like:
>
> for CF cards:
> http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2sahdcf.php
>
> or
>
> for SD cards:
> http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2sahdcf.php
>
> I could get 2 of these for each server, each with a mirrored pair of CF (or
> SD) cards (mirror mode is defined by a jumper or switch on the adapter),
> then mirror those (in the BIOS), which would result in a total of FOUR CF
> (or SD) redundant cards (a mirror of 2 mirrored pairs) for the hypervisor...
> and I can do this for quite a bit less than even a SINGLE 146GB SAS drive...
>
> Is there any reason NOT to do this?
>
> What am I missing (other than the fact that Dell won't support this config,
> but I'm not using them for software support anyway)?
>
> Appreciate any/all comments...

I'd say give it a shot on something non-critical, see if it works. The
big thing I'd be uncertain of is bootup time for the Addonics
adapter...how long before it tells the SATA controller it's ready?

Incidentally, I think that adapter is brilliant. I might snag one in a
few months and set up the Gentoo live DVD as a read-only boot install.

-- 
:wq