Do I need VT-d?

[Pengbo]

Hi New to forum. Wanting g to create my own ESXi server out of my currnet linux server as it's only running a piddly little ubuntu install. Was about to go for it when I decided to check compatibility of hardware and stuff. After bewildering amount of reading I come across VT-d and then this site when trying to work out what the hell it is and if I need to worry about it?

Still not 100% sure what it is but the main question is do I need it? Just want to virtualise the existing ubuntu install, run a OpenFiler and probably Vortex Box plus use it for testing OS and things in the future. Perfectly happy to RDP, console in from my PC i.e run it headless if that makes any difference.

Thanks in advance for any help you can supply to clear the confusion.

PS. did try to search for VT-d but the search on hear doesn't return anything, maybe it needs more letters than I was trying.

 

[TType85]

If you want to pass through physical hardware to the VM yes. Most people use it to pass a HDD controller through to a NAS OS. Some (few) people have been able to pass video cards to windows OS's but that is rare.

 

[Pengbo]

Ahhhh! I think I might need to do so with wanting to run OpenFiler on the HDD controller front.

Thanks TType85 back to hunting for a VT-d motherboard then. sigh

 

[TType85]

On consumer boards the Asrock z77 boards say they support it. I had a Asrock z68 that did. You need to make sure the processor supports it. Intel "K" processors do not. The i7 2600 did, the 2600k did not. You find the info on Intel site. Ark.intel.com I think. Not sure on amd, I think it is something like IMMOU or something like that (vt-d)

 

[DlStreamnet]

Asrock gen3 extreme 4/ supermicro one everyone on here buys / intel dq67sw

 

[bmh.01]

Ideally for the Openfiler VM you want it, otherwise you'll be taking a not unreasonble performance hit.

 

[juicedown]

I wouldn't if I were you. You're fine the way you are now.

 

[Pengbo]

I wouldn't if I were you. You're fine the way you are now.

??? sorry confused now.

 

[WoodiE]

VT-d allows you to pass through physical hardware to the VM. In my opinion I'd go ahead and get it, typically it doesn't cost any extra, in fact it was cheaper. Just keep in mind your motherboard AND CPU has to support VT-d in order for it to work.

The board I use is an ASRock z77 Extreme4-M along with an Intel Core i7-3770 CPU.

 

[/dev/null]

If you go AMD on this you have a LOT of cheap options. AMD calls it iommu.

pretty much all boards with chipsets 890FX, 970, 990X, 990FX have it. All modern phenom2 cpus should suppor it as well as the FX ones.

 

[bman212121]

??? sorry confused now.

I think he means you should be able to accomplish the same thing you will from openfiler on Ubuntu. Trying to setup ESXi and do pass-through can be hit and miss and it makes the setup more complicated than it needs to be.

You can run virtualbox, KVM, or XEN directly on top of your Ubuntu install if you want to host VMs. Virtualbox is the easiest method, and KVM / XEN are harder to work with, but provide more performance.

For my server I wanted to do VT-d to pass through a tuner card and video card. Since ESXi doesn't support software RAID there wasn't really a good way to accomplish what I wanted. I wasn't having luck with VT-d and making things work. XEN would have done what I wanted but I just wasn't having luck with that either. (I probably could have gotten it working if I spent more time on it)

I would honestly suggest loading up Virtualbox first, installing those VMs and see if that provides the performance you need. Just make sure you have Virtualization Tech turned on in the the bios so you are using hardware acceleration of your VMs. You will get decent performance out of that and it's a lot easier to use.

 

[sblantipodi]

is there some performance benchmark that shows the difference between VT-d on and off?