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ADDING AN RDM DISK TO VIRTUAL MACHINE
A raw device mapping (RDM) is a special file in a VMFS volume that acts as a proxy for a raw device. The RDM
provides some of the advantages of a virtual disk in the VMFS file system, while keeping some advantages of direct
access to raw devices. VMware recommends RDM when a virtual machine must interact with a real disk on the SAN
or iSCSI SAN. Two compatibility modes are available for RDM. The physical compatibility mode (a.k.a. pass-through
mode) allows direct access of a SCSI device for those applications that need lower-level control. The virtual
compatibility mode (a.k.a. non pass-through mode) allows an RDM to act exactly like a virtual disk file.
Prior to adding RDM, we need to create a virtual machine first. An iSCSI LUN on an Storcenter ix4-200r can then be
assigned to the virtual machine in either compatibility mode.
1. Go to Inventory > Host > New Virtual Machine… to create a new virtual machine. After naming the virtual machine,
select a datastore in which to store the files for the virtual machine. For illustration purposes, the “Iomega-NFS”
datastore created previously is used in the following figure.
Figure 34 Choose the datastore to hold the virtual machine
2. Follow the instructions on setting the Guest Operating System, CPUs, Memory, Network, and Virtual Disk Capacity
to complete the process of virtual machine creation.
3. Install the guest Operating System using a CD/DVD or ISO image. Power on the virtual machine after installation to
finish all virtual machine configurations.
STORCENTER IX4-200r NAS WITH VMWARE ESX SERVER 3.5