Minimum boot drive size for Server 2012 R2/Hyper-V Host

[JimPhreak]

I'm considering moving to Hyper-V from ESXi 5.5 for my new home VM server. If I do I'd run a full instance of Server 2012 R2 Standard and the only services running on it will be Hyper-V. Would I be able to get away with a 32GB SATA DOM or do I need to go 64GB?

 

[T_Minus]

I'd go 64 for that usage. Increased endurance. Increased performance, only slightly more expensive.

I don't get why we aren't seeing 120-240GB SATA DOM Would be nice

 

[JimPhreak]

I'd go 64 for that usage. Increased endurance. Increased performance, only slightly more expensive.

I don't get why we aren't seeing 120-240GB SATA DOM Would be nice

Just that I already have a 32GB one so wondering if it will suffice or if it flat out won't be enough.

 

[T_Minus]

Just that I already have a 32GB one so wondering if it will suffice or if it flat out won't be enough.

Sent you a PM.

 

[PigLover]

I've loaded Hyper-v Server 2012R2 on a 32gb boot drive, but was unable to get a 'full' version of 2012R2 loaded on a 32gb drive. It would fit easily, but the installer seems to enforce a minimum.

 

[JimPhreak]

I've loaded Hyper-v Server 2012R2 on a 32gb boot drive, but was unable to get a 'full' version of 2012R2 loaded on a 32gb drive. It would fit easily, but the installer seems to enforce a minimum.

I've considered going with Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 but this being my first experience with it I want the full GUI.

 

[TuxDude]

It'll fit, but it will take a lot of cleaning to keep it running without problems. Once there's a service pack or two, and a few years of hotfixes accumulated, you'll be constantly trying to free up bits of space to keep the boot drive from filling and then nothing works right anymore.

We've standardized on 40GB for boot drives (VMs and boot-from-SAN physical boxes) - the odd older machine is starting to have issues with that now and its usually easier to just expand the boot drive by 10GB than spend far too much time trying to free up that same amount of space.

 

[JimPhreak]

It'll fit, but it will take a lot of cleaning to keep it running without problems. Once there's a service pack or two, and a few years of hotfixes accumulated, you'll be constantly trying to free up bits of space to keep the boot drive from filling and then nothing works right anymore.

We've standardized on 40GB for boot drives (VMs and boot-from-SAN physical boxes) - the odd older machine is starting to have issues with that now and its usually easier to just expand the boot drive by 10GB than spend far too much time trying to free up that same amount of space.

Looks like the 64GB is the way to go then!

 

[TuxDude]

What I would do, is install it onto the 32GB and play with it a bit. Then when you realize its crap go back to a real hypervisor that also happens to fit in that smaller device and save your money

 

[JimPhreak]

What I would do, is install it onto the 32GB and play with it a bit. Then when you realize its crap go back to a real hypervisor that also happens to fit in that smaller device and save your money

You're Pro-VMware I assume? I am too as it's all I've ever used both at home and at work but figured it might be worth looking into Hyper-V for the sake of learning. Sure I could just nest a Hyper-V host inside my ESXi host but I feel like I always learn things the best when I apply them to my own network and are forced to implement features that I will actually use.

 

[TuxDude]

You're Pro-VMware I assume? I am too as it's all I've ever used both at home and at work but figured it might be worth looking into Hyper-V for the sake of learning. Sure I could just nest a Hyper-V host inside my ESXi host but I feel like I always learn things the best when I apply them to my own network and are forced to implement features that I will actually use.

Not so much pro-vmware as I am anti-MS. I usually can't spend more than 15 minutes or so working on windows before it has pissed me off to the point of taking out my anger on mice/keyboards. Drives me crazy when a computer thinks its smarter than I am, hides all the technical details away, and pops up fancy looking wizards with suggestions that aren't what I want and/or error messages with either the wrong error or no useful message at all (a message of "talk to an administrator" is totally useless when I'm the administrator). A computer is just a stupid tool that I expect to do what I tell it to.

I've got lots of VMware experience (just got esxi6 installed on my home box), and my opinion towards them has only been getting worse over the last few years as well. Pretty much since EMC bought VMware they've done little to no advancement of the hypervisor, focusing instead almost solely on high-level management stuff that they then also price so high that no-one can afford it anyways. I'm not interested in any vCloud crap, VXLAN causes me way more problems than it solves, and I still can't storage-vmotion a linked clone.

My future interest in hypervisors is around KVM - I've still got lots of playing and learning to do there.

 

[Chuntzu]

32gb works fine. I am using 32gb drives in my dev-ops nuc cluster and full server 2012r2.

 

[HotFix]

You're Pro-VMware I assume? I am too as it's all I've ever used both at home and at work but figured it might be worth looking into Hyper-V for the sake of learning. Sure I could just nest a Hyper-V host inside my ESXi host but I feel like I always learn things the best when I apply them to my own network and are forced to implement features that I will actually use.

I would not recommend running a Hyper-V host inside a VMWare host. I can't imagine the performance of a double virtualized child VM would be very good, and I would hate for you to get a negative view unfairly of Hyper-V when it's a great product. For the record I am pro-Microsoft (with good reason), and I was able to pick up and deploy several enterprise level Hyper-V clusters in Windows 2008 R2 w/o much fuss. Server 2012 and later gets a little more complicated, but probably no more so than VMWare has over the years (I haven't used VMWare since Hyper-V hit 2008 R2 SP1 with dynamic memory).

I agree with your sentiment about going all in and forcing your self to learn. Sometimes you have to jump into the pool with both feet. I think you should give it a go, worst case is you hate it and reformat your system with VMWare's product.