VMware ESXi running on an SSD with RAID 10 HDDs?

Question

I'm looking to setup a VMware ESXi server to host a bunch of VMs. The VMs will be used as various servers and malware analysis machines.

Hardware I'm working with:

• Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-Z77-DS3H (5 SATA slots, supports RAID 0,1,5,10)
• CPU: Intel Core BX80637I53470 i5-3470 (4 cores)
• RAM: 24 GB DDR3
• SSD: 500GBx2 100GBx1
• HDD: 6TBx1 3TBx2 1TBx1
• Cash: $300

Goals:

1. Redundancy
2. Speed
3. 6TB Usable storage (excluding OS overhead)

My initial thoughts were that I'll have to buy 2 more 3TB drives, and then RAID 10 the four 3TB drives, and run ESX off one of the 500GB SSDs. Or buy another 6TB and RAID 1 the two of them, and run ESX off of a RAID 1 of the two 500GB SSDs.

Is it possible to use the 6TB drive in conjunction with the two 3TB drives in a RAID?

Is it possible to have two separate RAID configurations setup at once?

Does anyone know what the most effective setup with these drives and hardware would be?

Answer 1

Is it possible to use the 6TB drive in conjunction with the two 3TB drives in a RAID, but not as you may want. You can create a 3TB RAID 0/1/5 and remain with the rest of the 6TB drive space as non-RAID, which is not too useful in your case.

Yes, is it possible to have two separate RAID configurations setups at once.

The most easy setup would be to get another 6TB drive, RAID it with the existing one, and let the 3TB exist as separate RAID.

You would have 9TB of usable space but not high speed if you RAID1 both arrays. Or, RAID 0 either of the pairs for high speed.

For best of both worlds, backup and speed, RAID 10 all 4 drives and you will get 6TB (Array1), then out of the remaining 6TB drive space make another RAID 0 (if you need that space for high speed and capacity) or RAID 1(if you want it for backup) (Array2).

Ar1 Ar2 
||| ||| Disk1 6TB
||| ||| Disk2 6TB
|||     Disk3 3TB 
|||     Disk4 3TB