We are in the process of setting up a new Hyper-V host to replace our existing failing Windows 2003 R2 server.
The new Host is running Windows 2008 R2 and inside that we will be running a few Virtual Servers including one which will be used as a file server.
Our problem is that all of our documents are currently spread across multiple Apple Time Capsules and client workstations. I want to be able to centralise the documents used company wide on the single virtual fileserver, but the 2TB limit for VHD's is a problem as the total storage required will be over 2TB and climbing.
We have a Netgear ReadyNAS® Pro 4, 8TB Unified Storage System with RAID 5 total storage of ~6TB.
My question is how can I access this NAS through the fileserver to be transparent to the end user. Would it be better to use DFS to have \server\share\largedataarea or use a SAN on a dedicated NIC and use an NTFS mount point, or is there another option?
Any suggestions greatly appreciated!
Best Answer
For pure data stores, I typically prefer dedicating an iSCSI LUN/volume for the data, but keep the VM OS in a VHD as you would all your other VM's. This allows you to easily grow/shrink the data volume as needed, plus you get all the fun features your SAN may offer.