RDMs or standard vmdk for EV Vms

[Merv]

This is the scenario i have a a few small sites with EV servers vms on ESXi where storage is about 1 - 1.5 TB for vault store. with index 1/3 or so that size. Do I need to go for RDMs?

I found this which wasn't helpful 

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH125712

I understand the pros and cons with regard RDMS from a vmware perspective. Any best practises / exp from the field with regards to EV?

[JesusWept3 · Accepted solution]

Looking at the following performance chart, it appears that performance of VMFS usually edges out RDMs, and reading on a lot of blogs and forums, the consensus appears to be that you would only really use RDM's when you would want to cluster a physical machine with a virtual machine (since the clusters need to share Quorums and data disks etc)

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmfs_rdm_perf.pdf

Where RDM's seem to edge out the VMFS is only physical CPU usage, and in some cases can offer a 10%-12% advantage over VMFS, but the throughput is usually edged out by VMFS....

So from all the things i've read, I don't think from a performance perspective you are really going to notice the difference, however from a management perspective you may find it easier to use VMFS etc, so its all based on your ESX Server Admins preference.

[Merv]

that's what i thought too..thanks just need to figure to tell admins that adding vmfs datastore extents(beyond 2 TB) are ok