ESXi lab datastore: hardware raid or NAS

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RESTfulADI

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I am building an ESXi host and I am not sure what to do about storage. The simplest solution would be to get a cheap raid card and a couple RE4s in raid1 but I could definitely use more training in NFS and iSCSI and the related networking so I am thinking about a cheap Atom based NAS. I'm thinking raid1 would do for the datastore, it's not going to be production and one of the VMs will be running FlexRaid with its own drives for my media storage. I have no idea how many IOPS I will be needing. Any additional benefit to the NAS to justify the cost?
 
Best of both worlds for learning...do it as an "all in one" and build the NAS as the first VM under ESXi. That way you don't need extra hardware and you can play with iSCSI/NFS/etc with advanced networking simulated using the ESXi virtual switch design - you won't be constrained by the limits of the 1Gbe network or speed issues from your ATOM based NAS.

See here for one way: http://www.napp-it.org/manuals/all-in-one/index_en.html
 
I considered that but I was planning on passing through the onboard sata controller to a windows server or linux vm for FlexRaid. Would I be able to pass through a couple hard drives to the NAS VM and the rest to my FlexRaid VM? Also, it I go the dedicated NAS route I was planning 2x1Gb at least, my switch supports link aggregation.
 
shiznit said:
I considered that but I was planning on passing through the onboard sata controller to a windows server or linux vm for FlexRaid. Would I be able to pass through a couple hard drives to the NAS VM and the rest to my FlexRaid VM? Also, it I go the dedicated NAS route I was planning 2x1Gb at least, my switch supports link aggregation.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can pass through different PCI/PCIe devices to different VMs separately.

However, I think you should be certain that the on-board SATA ports will pass through at all. YMMV on this. ESXi (actually, VT-d) has a limitation that PCI passthrough (VM Directpath) does not work if the PCI device sets behind any kind of PCI/PCIe "switch" and in many cases the motherboard design does things that have this effect. Some people have reported success passing through on-board SATA, others not so much. Note that this has nothing at all to do with your choice to run the "all in one" or otherwise. It is a pure ESXi interaction with your MB that will exist no matter what.
 
PigLover said:
Yes, you can pass through different PCI/PCIe devices to different VMs separately.

However, I think you should be certain that the on-board SATA ports will pass through at all. YMMV on this. ESXi (actually, VT-d) has a limitation that PCI passthrough (VM Directpath) does not work if the PCI device sets behind any kind of PCI/PCIe "switch" and in many cases the motherboard design does things that have this effect. Some people have reported success passing through on-board SATA, others not so much. Note that this has nothing at all to do with your choice to run the "all in one" or otherwise. It is a pure ESXi interaction with your MB that will exist no matter what.
Click to expand...

Yes I put that PCIe disclaimer on every board review with a NF200 chip at this point.I would suggest saving money for iteration 1 and doing an all-in-one then doing a second box for iteration 2.
 
PigLover said:
Yes, you can pass through different PCI/PCIe devices to different VMs separately.

However, I think you should be certain that the on-board SATA ports will pass through at all. YMMV on this. ESXi (actually, VT-d) has a limitation that PCI passthrough (VM Directpath) does not work if the PCI device sets behind any kind of PCI/PCIe "switch" and in many cases the motherboard design does things that have this effect. Some people have reported success passing through on-board SATA, others not so much. Note that this has nothing at all to do with your choice to run the "all in one" or otherwise. It is a pure ESXi interaction with your MB that will exist no matter what.
Click to expand...
Very good point, I guess my original plan to pass through the controller to the media server VM would have avoided this issue. I am looking at Supermicro socket 1155 motherboards now, unless I can find a 1156 for cheap. Sata ports will be a problem, with a drive dedicated to the NAS VM and two more for the datastore, I would only have three ports left for media storage on most motherboards. Maybe I should get the Supermicro 1156 with the build-in SAS controller.
 
Remember in a Lab or learning setting, speed is not really an issue. I think either or would work fine, but ESXi boxes can consume alot of power if left on 24/7. Not sure if this NAS is going to be a dual purpose roll, IE also store media etc.. Also Head-less ESXi servers can be built very cheaply, are small, and consume little power with the right cpu.
 
"Note that this has nothing at all to do with your choice to run the "all in one" or otherwise."

Not to nitpick, but the inability to do this might make the all in one approach a non-starter for some, no?
 
Vengance_01 said:
Remember in a Lab or learning setting, speed is not really an issue. I think either or would work fine, but ESXi boxes can consume alot of power if left on 24/7. Not sure if this NAS is going to be a dual purpose roll, IE also store media etc.. Also Head-less ESXi servers can be built very cheaply, are small, and consume little power with the right cpu.
Click to expand...
No the NAS will not be used for media, I will have a VM running FlexRaid for that. I may decide to store some additional files there later but for now the only purpose would be datastore. Regarding speed, even if I don't need it, I certainly won't mind it.
 
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