Best practice, hyper-v role or server... Migrate 2.5TB of shares and data inside a VM? Possible? SAS or Sata?

currently have 11 vm's running on server 14gb of 16gb of ram used.  server beefy.. has areca sas/sata card.. uses 8 500gb sataii enterprise 32mb drives in raid 6 array (disk mark of 2600 in passmark).  server has harpertown dual quad core 2.5ghz cpu 667mhz ram.  have 3 spare drive bays on removable bays on supermicro 2u chassis too.

we building new server same hardware except maybe 2.8ghz , 800mhz ram can goto 128mb.  same sas/sata card, with, planning on still doing, sata ii 500gb drives again, though maybe bigger data array (4tb instead of 3.2tb).

**the new server going hyper-v server (barebones) likely.. , hoping convert old server hyper-v server (is possible convert) or have migrate data off 2005 r2 2003 box somewhere else.. create hyperv, create vm store data copy data over?

would a bad idea create vm/virtual hdd 3tb in size or larger house our existing physical network shares?(ie: move network shares inside vm or two)?  40 users , 2 physical servers (hosts).. 15-20 hits time if on vm's, less currently.

i'm debating whether should make jump sas drives (single port waste of money?).. though dont see many 500gb dual port sas drives.. i'm not sure benifit our situation?



for reference.. here breakdown of our current vm's (all x86 until hyper-v), within limits of ram usage:

the current beefy host (using 14gb of 16gb of ram):

vscm01: configuration manager 2007 (sql db on vssql01)
vssql01: sql 2005 6 instances running
vsvmm01: virtual machine manager 2007 (sql db on vssql01)
vsocs01: communication server 2007 (sql db on vssql01)
vsedge01: ftp, communicator edge server role eventually
vsav01: trendmicro antivirus server
vsdyn01: dynamics great plains app portion (sql on vssql01)
vsdc01: domain controller, dhcp (only dchp), dns#1
vstfs01: team foundation server 2008 app portion (sql on vssql01, intranet on vsintranet01)
vsintranet01: sharepoint 2007 (intranet, team foundation intranet)
vswsus01: wsus server, internal db on same box

host:
vsdc02: dns, dc (global catalog)


future additional vms:
vshasp01: hasp (aladdin) app portion (db on vssql01)
vsdata01: virtual harddisk 2.5-3tb of data migrated physical host  maybe?
vssqldev01: sql server development database
vsprod01: sql server things production copy of our offsite sql

*vssql01 has 80gb free on virtual fixed d drive, video data , source projects moved onto team foundation, have grow 1.5tb max (of 3tb of total network share data have/will have)

thanks tips

markm75g said:

the new server going hyper-v server (barebones) likely.. , hoping convert old server hyper-v server (is possible convert) or have migrate data off 2005 r2 2003 box somewhere else.. create hyperv, create vm store data copy data over?
 

you can use matthijs ten seldam's vmc hyper-v import tool convert virtual server 2005 virtual machines hyper-v guests.

markm75g said:

would a bad idea create vm/virtual hdd 3tb in size or larger house our existing physical network shares?(ie: move network shares inside vm or two)? 
 

the maximum size virtual hard disk (vhd file) 2040gb.

Windows Server  >  Hyper-V