RE: [Xen-users] first time w/ XEN - Looking for some advise

[Nathan Eisenberg <nathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Accidentally sent this offlist, resending)

1) I recommend never, ever using RAID5.  There are plenty of articles around on 
why it is a terrible standard, so I won't say too much more on this.  Were I 
you, I would use RAID-0+1 (Two RAID-0s with RAID-1 across them) or RAID-10 
(RAID-1s with a RAID-0 across them).  (RAID-10 is preferred).
http://decipherinfosys.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/difference-between-raid-01-vs-raid-10/

2) I personally prefer ubuntu for the Dom0.  The repository stays pretty up to 
date.  Oh, and Dom0 should always be x64.

3) Well, the best way is actually to have remote storage, but if you're going 
to use local disks, it is a good idea to have separate LVMs.  You don't need 
two, but it's more logical this way.

4) Nope, you are not limited to 64-bit guests.  Although there are very few 
reasons to use 32bit OSs these days.

Good luck!

Thank you,
Nathan Eisenberg
Sr. Systems Administrator
Atlas Networks, LLC

-----Original Message-----
From: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Charlie Reddington
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 11:10 AM
To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Xen-users] first time w/ XEN - Looking for some advise

Hi,

I have a server that I can use to work with XEN on. It's a dell  
poweredge 1950, 64 bit 2.6ghz, single quad core cpu. Has about 2 GB of  
ram, and 1XX GB in a raid 5 setup.

I've been reading and trying to gather what is the best way to set  
this up. My questions....

1.) What's the best say to setup the Raid for this? Is Raid 5 Ideal?  
(I have a 4 disk setup - currently 3 disks are part of the raid 5 w/ 1  
being a hotspare).

2.) What is the communities take on using CentOS 5 - x86_64 for the  
base OS?  Is there anything that the base install really needs? I  
generally try to shy away from installing Gnome/KDE/X on my servers as  
to reclaim some resources, but the idea of having a GUI to install  
this stuff would make things more simple I would think.

3.) I've read about having a separate LVM for the virtual machines and  
one for your OS. Is this really the best way? I understand the reason  
for the LVM, so you can add more storage as you need it, but do you  
really need two?

4.) My last question for now is , if your running an x86_64 system,  
are you limited to running only 64 bit OS's or like any machine you  
can still install x86 with no problems?

Thank you for any help,

Charlie

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