ESX local disk partitioning
I had a conversation with some colleagues of mine about ESX local disk partitioning and some interesting questions were raised.
How many are creating local vmfs storage on their ESX servers?
How many actually use that local vmfs storage?
Typically it is frowned upon to store vm’s on local vmfs because you loose the advances features of ESX such as vMotion, DRS, and HA. So if you don’t run vm’s from the local vmfs, then why create it? Creating this local datastore promotes it’s use just by being there. If you’re short on SAN space and need to deploy a vm and can’t wait for the SAN admins to present you more storage, what do you do? I’m sure more frequently than not you deploy to the local storage to fill the need for the vm. I’m also sure that those at least 20% of the time those vm’s continue to live there.
