How can I save "fast" space on ESXi?

Question

System administration

I often have a server configuration of 2x2TB of regular screws and 2x240GB of fast SAS or SSD. Collected in "mirrors", datastores are assigned accordingly. Further on ESXi, a bunch of virtual machines with the same 2008r2 Windows (Terminals, file cleaning, 1C, SQL, VPN) spin, and information, like a database, is placed on separate fast hard drives. Sometimes you want to throw a whole terminal server on fast storage so that people can fly all sorts of VLSI ++, Google Chrome, etc. application programs. If you start putting all operating system disks in fast storage, then there will not be enough space. I've heard of HorizonView with GoldenImage but can't afford vcenter etc yet, haven't figured it out yet, but doesn't seem like the option I need. The bottom line is that everywhere the same OS, but everywhere independent disks.

1) Is it possible to make 1 disk, put it on fast storage, and make the rest dependent on it and also on fast storage and save a lot of space?
2) What will happen when the disks are overgrown with updates, how much will the work slow down, or will the size grow?
3) What will happen if you update the main disk? Does it get blocked? Can it be unlocked if an update is needed?
4) What works faster in the early days on SSD\SAS, 10 disks dependent on the first one, or 10 separate disks?
5) What works faster after several years of updates? Given that 2008r2 is almost never updated,

please answer at least those points that you know about. And I want general advice on how best to organize, if you have any ideas

Answer 1

1) You can't. VMware knows how to assign one disk to only one VM. Golden Image is just a VM template with installed updates, software and subsequent cleaning of temporary files, from which VMs are cloned for normal operation (VDI is an option, the VM is temporary there and is deleted after the user finishes working with it). You may be able to save storage space if you enable deduplication for disks with the operating system on it, but this is not guaranteed, plus there will be performance problems if the VM is updated without an additional avhd disk (i.e. without a snapshot) - in this case, constantly there will be clusters that will exit the deduplicated state, and the storage space will begin to fill up, in the general case, the storage will respond more slowly than in a situation without deduplication.
2) Thin provision disks will grow as usual, thick provision will not lose performance, but they immediately occupy the maximum size, even when they are created.
3) Not applicable. If we are talking about the Golden Image, it is updated as a regular separate VM and then exported back to the template.
4) Not applicable - you will have to compare disks from different VMs, and they will have more than one primary disk image. That is, only a configuration with 10 individual disks will be available.
5) There too.
Data on VMware ESXi 6.0 and my experience with it. If 6.5 has changed something, I'll be glad to know.

Answer 2

Terminals, file cleaning, 1C, SQL, VPN

You can make it easier - place the system itself on a not very fast disk.
But the user profiles that are critical for the responsiveness of the system should be transferred to a fast disk.
It is also worth taking a closer look at the new SSDs from Intel - Optane in conjunction with their proprietary caching utility.