Hello,
I have 2 servers to replace next year: a DC and a File Server. Instead of purchasing 2 separate servers, I'm trying to convince my superiors we should go with a single server and use Hyper-V for our purposes. I had no previous experience with Hyper-V but hey, gotta learn it somehow:)
The setup will go like this:
1) The host will have only the Hyper-V server role installed
2) One guest will be a server 2008 R2 Domain Controller with DNS, DHCP and NPS server roles.
3) The second guest will be a Server 2012 R2 file server with DFS Replication. The file server will have very small usage as it only servers as a backup place for my users files. No extensive read/write will take place on it, other than DFS replication each night to another server in a different office. The remote office will also have a Server 2012 R2. So far we have been using Server 2003 in both offices with Robocopy running every night. We want to switch do DFS.
Important: the office won't have more than 50 users.
I pretty much know what I intend to propse, the only problem I have at the moment is choosing the correct disk setup. The server I want to buy will have 8 disks and I will be using hardware RAID (specifically the Dell PERC H730 Controller). The variations I am considering:
1) All 8 disks of the same size, combined with RAID 5 or RAID 10 and the virtual hard drives installed on the same logical disk as the OS.
2) 2 drives of lesser capacity combined into a RAID 1 array for the OS and the virtual disks, with the only difference being that I could set up a RAID 5 (or 10 but rather 5) array with the remaining 6 drives and use them as a passthrough disk for the File Server VM.
3) 4 drives of lesser capacity, combined in 2 RAID 1 arrays (one array for the OS and the second for the virtual disk files) and again 4 disks to act as a passthrough disk for the virtual File Server.
I think that option 2 or 3 would be preferred, but I would like to hear from someon more experienced.
Thanks in advance for your help in that matter.
Kind regards,
Wojciech.