Over in the Virtual Iron forums, gaspode asks how to add raw disk partitions to virtual machines.

Always quick to respond, Chris Barclay explains that "to use raw storage, you need a fibre channel HBA on our HCL (a broad range of Qlogic and Emulex adapters). Zone a LUN to the HBA in the virtualized node, and it will appear as a storage option when you configure your virtual server. If you go to the section [in Virtual Iron 3.1's documentation] on setting up and configuring virtual servers, it is explained in further detail & with pictures."

The forum thread goes on to discuss our DataCore partnership, which allows you to create SAN volumes from local storage.

You may want to use raw storage for either of these reasons:
. Raw storage can be shared by multiple VSs. In contrast, vDisks must be assigned to VSs on a one-to-one basis
. Slightly higher performance, realizable when using raw storage, may be required by certain classes of applications.

Managed storage and virtual disks provide simpler manageability than Raw storage, providing benefits such as cloning and virtual server import/export.

Instead of using SAN FC HBA, does Virtual Iron support a SAS HBA plugged into the node platform? Suppose I use an external PCIe SAS HBA and connect 8 SAS drives, how can I access these drives from the VI management server. Instead of Network Attached Storage (NAS) via SAN, I'm more interested in Direct Attached Storage (DAS). When I did the performance analysis under Xen, I have to build PV VBD drivers and modify the HVM config file in Xen domain0 to let HVM domain recognize those raw drives connected to the SAS HBA. Does Virtual Iron support this?

We do not support this right now.