Curious, would this work? If a drive fails totally, the pass-thru way, ZFS can replace a spare without intervention, I don't see how that would work with the vmdk method - what causes ESX to declare it down? And does unplugging a drive with a datastore cause the virtual drives to be "unplugged" from any affected VMs?
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Encrypted ZFS iSCSI target in VMWare Server?
- Thread starter iroc409
- Start date
It looks like this is where I am at. Keep using Windows Server and switch from Hyper-V to VMWare for virtualization (going to be adding *nix guests) and forget ZFS, or switch over to something like Solaris or FreeBSD and use ZFS. The software RAID features would be nice, but I doubt my storage needs will outpace a singe hard drive for some time.
I guess it becomes, how badly do I want ZFS?
It isn't just raid. If you do have redundancy, you get end to end checksumming (e.g. no silent data corruption.) Snapshots (very handy for versioning.) If you have folders with highly compressible data, you can transparently compress data stored there, just set that as a property of the folder. Sharing individual folders via SMB or NFS - easy too. All kinds of other nice features as well...
Yeah, the checksum capability is pretty much the primary motivator behind the whole thing. It's just whether I want to learn a new OS for my data archiving purposes, or stay the course and maintain what's easy.
Sometimes venturing new waters can also cause instability from PEBKAC errors. Most of this stuff is pretty easy, but if I convert entirely, I'm entrusting data that I will be unable to replace.
I've thought about doing more optical data archiving as another backup system. That's probably a good idea at this point.
Sometimes venturing new waters can also cause instability from PEBKAC errors. Most of this stuff is pretty easy, but if I convert entirely, I'm entrusting data that I will be unable to replace.
I've thought about doing more optical data archiving as another backup system. That's probably a good idea at this point.
No kidding. If I didn't have drive failures (home server, RE4 drives but they're little PITAs... the Consumer Hitachis work better) I would never even touch CLI after I set it up.Well, it isn't like you need to constantly be tweaking stuff on the CLI once it works
That and wanting to upgrade from something else than OpenSolaris b134... Sigh Solaris 11 Xpress. I need to find time some time to spin up OI in a VM and see if that alias/CIFS bug exists in that (or wait for b162)
And I would like to echo the sentiments that ESXI and PCI (Xpress) Passthrough of the controller is near-line native performance in my experience (iSCSI/CIFS). I actually got better CIFS performance, but I was running VMs inside OpenSolaris before (this was before ESXi was an option... I know..)
So, how do you go about backing up a file server running in ESX? Generally I just copy files off to a USB drive and detach it, but it seems like this is a pain or not well supported in ESX (same with eSATA). From my Googling most people say to use another computer (like an external iSCSI machine).
What do you all use?
What do you all use?
I have raid10 storage using zfs on an openindiana server. Various linux servers back up to it using rsync. The nice thing about that is that the backup paradigm is: do rsync from server X to the SAN. Then, take a snapshot of the backup directory on the SAN. Instant versioning...
Your OpenIndiana box is a standalone box though, right? So you can easily send your snapshot of your backups to a detachable drive for offsite backups.
From what I've been trying to determine, this sounds like it is more difficult with ESX. This is basically why I asked the original question. I can do the backups easily in Win Server, but I haven't gotten any clear data.
I need to install ESX on one of my machines and play with it. Unfortunately at the moment I don't think anything I have will run ESX because of its requirements. I guess I will have to try XenServer or something. I'd rather have some experience before spending hundreds on new hardware.
From what I've been trying to determine, this sounds like it is more difficult with ESX. This is basically why I asked the original question. I can do the backups easily in Win Server, but I haven't gotten any clear data.
I need to install ESX on one of my machines and play with it. Unfortunately at the moment I don't think anything I have will run ESX because of its requirements. I guess I will have to try XenServer or something. I'd rather have some experience before spending hundreds on new hardware.
Actually, the OI "box" is a virtual appliance too I'm actually talking about 2 levels of backup. The VMs back up their day to day changes via rsync to the OI SAN. The OI SAN can then back up various things to an external location/drive. The thing is: you don't really need to back up anything related to ESX itself. What I do: when I create/install a new VM, I power it off, and export an OVA/OVF (appliance) and save it to the SAN. So if I had to restore a VM, I would import the appliance and then restore changes via rsync. There is nothing really ESXI related that needs to be backed up.
I'm actually talking about 2 levels of backup. The VMs back up their day to day changes via rsync to the OI SAN. The OI SAN can then back up various things to an external location/drive. The thing is: you don't really need to back up anything related to ESX itself. What I do: when I create/install a new VM, I power it off, and export an OVA/OVF (appliance) and save it to the SAN. So if I had to restore a VM, I would import the appliance and then restore changes via rsync. There is nothing really ESXI related that needs to be backed up.No, I wouldn't be backing up ESX itself. I understand that if ESX totally crashes, it's a simple install and if your machines are backed up you'd be up in minutes.
What I've had trouble determining is backing up the VM's, or perhaps the data VM's.
My current setup is just Windows Server 2008 with a data storage drive (among a few other things). I only backup the data storage drive, by copying the files to an external drive regularly (a couple of them). So, I connect the drive, copy the files, and disconnect the drive.
Doing this with ESX, from most of what I've read, sounds like a pain. I guess maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way, and should be looking at backing up the virtual machine--say the OpenIndiana box. If I'm backing it up in its entirety, then I can just re-establish the entire machine in its saved state. With my current method, if the server crashes, I can just plug that backup drive into any PC and get what I need off of it.
What I've had trouble determining is backing up the VM's, or perhaps the data VM's.
My current setup is just Windows Server 2008 with a data storage drive (among a few other things). I only backup the data storage drive, by copying the files to an external drive regularly (a couple of them). So, I connect the drive, copy the files, and disconnect the drive.
Doing this with ESX, from most of what I've read, sounds like a pain. I guess maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way, and should be looking at backing up the virtual machine--say the OpenIndiana box. If I'm backing it up in its entirety, then I can just re-establish the entire machine in its saved state. With my current method, if the server crashes, I can just plug that backup drive into any PC and get what I need off of it.
Yeah, it was a scatter-brained post because I'm doing too many other things. I was more thinking out loud. It seems if I want to go that route, I need to change my backup perspective. Currently, I am not backing up my server as to do a bare-metal restore; I only backup the data I deem important to backup--so it is a change in backup philosophy for me.
Everything I've read says at minimum it's not possible and best case it's a real pain to have detachable storage devices to do backups (directly by a virtual machine). Even some VMWare docs I was just perusing earlier says that you can do client-level backups in VMWare--as long as it doesn't require direct access to hardware (i.e. passthrough to a eSATA or USB hard drive--it says use network only). So, as long as I'm backing up a full VM to an external drive, it should be fine (as you point out).
My only concern would then be backing up a large storage system. If I had a OI virtual machine with 3 TB of data on it, but only wanted to back up 1TB of it, it sounds like this would be difficult--unless I backed it up to another network device. Is that correct?
Everything I've read says at minimum it's not possible and best case it's a real pain to have detachable storage devices to do backups (directly by a virtual machine). Even some VMWare docs I was just perusing earlier says that you can do client-level backups in VMWare--as long as it doesn't require direct access to hardware (i.e. passthrough to a eSATA or USB hard drive--it says use network only). So, as long as I'm backing up a full VM to an external drive, it should be fine (as you point out).
My only concern would then be backing up a large storage system. If I had a OI virtual machine with 3 TB of data on it, but only wanted to back up 1TB of it, it sounds like this would be difficult--unless I backed it up to another network device. Is that correct?
Dan, I really appreciate your input, thanks.
So, it looks like I have a couple choices here. From the research I've done so far, it looks like I'm probably not getting away with a single machine.
Here are what I see as options:
Which looks like the best option?
So, it looks like I have a couple choices here. From the research I've done so far, it looks like I'm probably not getting away with a single machine.
Here are what I see as options:
- Stay the course with the separate firewall and current Windows Server and WHS. I would probably at least like to upgrade to ECC in the server, however.
- Stick with the hardware firewall, or build a ESXi/XenServer box with firewall and WHS, which backs up to a natively installed ZFS server. Then the ZFS server backs up to archive drives directly.
- Build a nice ESXi/XenServer all-in-one running firewall, WHS, and ZFS server (and maybe one or two other small as-needed servers). Then, have a separate machine powered up on-demand for backups. The second machine would be one of the machines I already have, running either Win Server or a ZFS machine with single backup detachable drives. This is attractive because there is regularly only one machine running, and the second only runs when needed. It could also be repurposed on- demand (removable drives, etc), and still be a backup machine.
Which looks like the best option?