I have a pool of XenServers that I am upgrading to 7.0. I have been doing fresh installs to switch to the new 46 GB partitioning layout, but unfortunately some of these servers only have 32GB SSD drives for root. I would like to know if anyone has had any negative experiences with 7.0 and the 4G/4G partition layout, otherwise I will probably skip the long trip to the data center at this time and proceed with the upgrades.
If I opt to not replace the 32GB drives with larger ones at this time, will I run into any serious issues with v7.0? (4GB vs 18GB for / makes me wonder if Citrix will be making plans to use that additional 14GB I won't have.)
You have two options.
Run the xenserver 7 installer and choose Upgrade. This will keep your existing 4 GB root partition.
Pro-No new hardware purchase needed
Con-Only 4GB root partition, and that's not really enough. Once Patches come out, and logs flow a bit, then you'll be short on disk space.
Buy and install new larger disks.
Pro-You get the larger disk space up front and no need to mess about.
Con-There's the cost of drives.
Overall you're being short sighted by not installing larger disks now. If its a cost thing (I know this feeling well) then SSDs are absolutely not required in a xenserver.
Personally I have 72GB 2.5" SAS spinning disks in my home servers, and I'm using 3.3GB. However at work I have much busier servers, and they are using anything from 3 to 6 GB of local disk space. That's with only two patches installed to 7.2... and based on what we know from XS6.5, patches build up over time.