hi
can i use different luns on drobo pro
with esxi & windows?
/e
What you propose is fabulously unsupported. It might be possible.
DroboPro cannot differentiate between hosts. Of course, it can differentiate between LUNs. I don’t know if that will be enough smarts to handle what you suggest.
DroboPro doesn’t natively understand VMFS. rambo is bloody smart and you might find his post helpful.
If I can “screw my courage to the sticking place” then I’ll test your idea this weekend with my ESXi 5.1 server. If you test it first, well, that’s even better! 
For Windows, you can create 128 LUNs or technically speaking should be Smart Volumes and provision them to different Windows hosts. Recommend to enable CHAP so the different hosts will not grab the same LUNs (Smart Volumes) & corrupts the NTFS partition.
For VMware, that really depends on which version. The Pro is only certified on earlier versions (vaguely recall ESXi 3 only) and un-support for vSphere 3.5/4/4.1/5/5.1 but that doesn’t mean the Pro cannot be configured & accessed as a datastore w/ the newer VMware editions. The Smart Volumes must be carved as a Raw LUN & ESXi (most version) should see it & then allow you to grab & convert to a vmfs datastore.
NOTE:
The DroboPro is EOL. I don’t recommend you to use that under VMware.
hi
im using esxi5.1
on it im running a windows server 2008 that will access 1 16tb lun
and i would like use 1 lun from drobo for backuping instances from esxi
i saw on 1 forum post that i should use 3261 port if i want to connect multiple esxi
to same drobo on different luns
but im not getting any response if i configure esxi in that way
i get list of luns if i connect via 3260
- will it work if i connect 2 instances via 3260 & different luns
- do i need to use 3261 port for windows too?
I see what U r trying to do but NTFS will not allow you to have multiple hosts accessing the same LUN regardless of the host is physical or virtual. The NTFS partition will be corrupted & the host(s) will prompt you to run chkdsk meaning you are vulnerable for data loss. Since you are running the iSCSI initiator to access the LUN or LUNs from the W2K8 VM, you are using the “bypass” or “LAN” method but the rule of one host per LUN still applies. The 3260/3261 is for MPIO not “MHIO” (Multiple Host).
If you just want to backup an instance (assuming VMs) residing on ur ESXi/vSphere host, then “Yes”, that method will work.
Wonder which backup & replication solution U r using on ur W2K8 VM?
The DroboPro can only connect to one host at a time. Reformatting an NTFS LUN to VMFS may cause the drive pack to become unreadable/unmountable the next time you reboot it; if this happens the DroboPro will go into a reboot loop. Even if you’re able to get this to work, it doesn’t have the IOPS needed for virtual environments.