I am configuring an all-in-one HUB/CAS/Mailbox server for less than 500 users on a Windows 2008 R2 Virtual machine and am getting ready to configure the storage I need. The two words I hate to hear most from PSS is "not recommended" or "not supported!" I have a Dell Equalogic PS6000 and have the option of "direct attached" versus VMware virtual disks for storage of the mailbox databases. Is using virtual disks a bad practice? Pros or cons that I should be aware of? Adding a layer of complexity that might come back to bite me?SnoBoy

You mean putting the EDBs inside VMDKs over iSCSI? Well, you can, but I'm pretty sure that you're still not supported. You would be better either putting the iSCSI initiator into the guest and connecting to LUNs on the EQ box. Alternatively, present RDM LUNs up to the ESX server and pass them through to the guest. Because you have EQ you don't have some of the more advanced Snapshot capabilities of other platforms (although you have more than some others!) so the use of EDBs inside VMDKs is your last resort and frankly unecessary in your environment. "SnoBoy" wrote in message news:6cb26a61-a2c8-4d9b-93d1-3c6829e3bbdf... I am configuring an all-in-one HUB/CAS/Mailbox server for less than 500 users on a Windows 2008 R2 Virtual machine and am getting ready to configure the storage I need. The two words I hate to hear most from PSS is "not recommended" or "not supported!" I have a Dell Equalogic PS6000 and have the option of "direct attached" versus VMware virtual disks for storage of the mailbox databases. Is using virtual disks a bad practice? Pros or cons that I should be aware of? Adding a layer of complexity that might come back to bite me? SnoBoyMark Arnold, Exchange MVP.

THanks - that is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for.SnoBoy