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ESXi question

Z

zrikz

[H]ard|Gawd
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May 29, 2006
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So I'm completely new to Virtualized computing but I'm about to build a new server and am interested in learning it.

Before I do so, I was curious if this is possible, I've only read a little bit up on ESXi so far.

I'll be running an AMD FX-8320 with 16 gigs of ram, 4x 3-TB HD and 1x 1-TB HD.

I want to have the 4- 3TBs in a Raid 5 and have that be it's own datastore. I would like to run Freenas or some other such NAS OS and it will be my dedicated home media server, most likely with 2 cores and about 4 gigs of ram.

Then I want to have the 1TB be it's own datastore and have it run a flavor of linux, on there I would be running a ventrilo or mumble server along with a game server for starbound/minecraft/terreria whatever.

I was trying to read and I was seeing that ESXi can't do software raid locally so the above might not be possible with ESXi, but.. I come to you experts for advice.

If the above is not an option. I was probably looking at running a flavor of linux, running VMware workstation and then doing the same thing with the freenas and then another version of linux for the other stuff.
 
I would not use raid 5 for anything more than 1 TB drives as anything more you get an increased chance of unrecoverable read errors. I would pick up a hardware raid card as performance may take a hit on the on-board raid controller and use raid 10. Yes, you lose the space for this configuration but you get added peace of mind with the fault tolerance it provides plus the performance factor. I'd go on ebay and pic up a couple of 2 port NICs as they are very cheap, around 15 bucks I would say since you'll need stand by NICs for the management and VM networks.
 
So I'm not too entirely worried about performance or with data availability in the event of failure. My home media server is only for streaming to 1 TV and that's it. If a drive fails, I have everything backed up externally and I could go out, purchase a new HD and just wipe it out, recreate raid and restore from backup. I primarily have just been doing Raid 5 for redundancy.I do daily back ups to external USBs

I don't think I can justify the price to purchase of additional HD's to expand the space I need with a Raid 10.

I have 3x 3TB right now, using about 4.8 of 6TB. Expanding to the 4th drive will give me the extra 3TB I need for extra space and future growth. I'm using a synology diskstation right now to hold my media, but I'm outgrowing it and it doesn't have the performance ability to do everything I want.

But if there is another option other than Raid 5 that could be better, I'm not familiar with potential unrecoverable read errors, etc.

Every time I upgrade internal HD space, I also purchase an external HD to back it up.
 
Don't bother with the software raid or the headache od dancing around it.

Just get a cheap hardware raid controller or use a 256GB SSD drive for a datastore and back up the snapshots on one of your ZFS pools.
 
Any suggestions for a potentially cheap controller?

/edit

Can anyone explain the datastore process, I don't think I read it or understood it correctly then. Or give me an example of how I would set up my scenario below?

If I were to make a Raid 5 with 4 drives (for a file server - FreeNAS) and then have 1 drive be standalone(for a whatever server - Ubuntu).. what would I do?
 
zrikz said:
Any suggestions for a potentially cheap controller?

/edit

Can anyone explain the datastore process, I don't think I read it or understood it correctly then. Or give me an example of how I would set up my scenario below?

If I were to make a Raid 5 with 4 drives (for a file server - FreeNAS) and then have 1 drive be standalone(for a whatever server - Ubuntu).. what would I do?
Click to expand...


http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/
can find them on ebay/amazon pretty cheap.
 
So it looks like Raid 5 with the M1015 requires an additional hardware key?
 
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Yeah..most people including myself use these as HBA's and use ZFS etc. You could passthrough this card to a FreeNAS VM and setup a ZFS Pool instead but you'll need storage to house the FreeNAS VM outside of those drives..local or otherwise.

In your situation, you could do the above with the 4 x 3TB drives and leave the single 1TB as a local datastore though performance MAY not be that great depending on what I/O characteristics are of the VM's you want to run on that 1TB drive.
 
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Looks like the advanced feature keys are only 20-30 on ebay.. worth it? I don't know much about ZFS pools and I'm completely new to VMs right now. Which would be easier?
 
After just a little research it looks like the M1015 cross flashed to IT and passing through the drives for ZFS would be the best bet.

Then from my understanding... I'd run ESXi and I'd be able run FreeNAS on my 1TB drive as a VM along with say ubuntu another VM on the 1TB drive, with the ZFS Pool being on the 4x3TB for freenas to use as the storage pool?

Another question concerning this... could I use a 40GB SSD hooked up to the motherboard sata port and use that for the ESXi install?
 
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You can install ESXi on whatever you want if it is locally available.

Again, I recommend buying a 16GB USB stick for 15 dollars and running ESXi off of that. Once it boots it is nearly all on the RAM anyway.

Then you can use you onboard SATA controller for local storage for a O/S to run ZFS. I would put it on a small hard drive, don't waste your 1TB Drive. You will have little performance when trying to active use that drive with a few other VM's. If you are just running a file sharing service and no IO intensive machines then it will be fine. Make sure you back up snapshots though.

Pass the IBM to your VM with file sharing... you can put your backups on that bulk storage. The cool think about ZFS is you can just import the pool (assuming the version is the same) into another machine if it fails and access the saved snapshots.


For a good deal more performance, buy a Samsung 840 SSD or a cheaper 250+GB drive and put your VMs on that. Any extra storage space, map it using you NAS vm's shared storage.
 
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If you are doing an all in one, you may as well install ESXi on the small SSD and use the remaining portion of the SSD as a local datastore, installing whichever OS you are going to use as a storage appliance on it, and then pass the drives on the m1015 into that appliance. IMO, it doesn't make much sense to have two parts involved, a USB stick for ESXi and a HD for the local datastore. Most storage appliance OS will use very little space anyway, so even a relatively small SSD will work fine...
 
For best practice I just go ahead and keep my esxi on a USB stick separate from anything else. It makes replacing it, cloning it, etc much easier. Then you get the whole SSD for local data storage instead of removing a gig or so from it. All that is does is increase boot time.
 
Sorry I'm sure my questions seem redundant, I just want to make sure I don't waste any money and I utilize the right equipment.

So I could have ESXi and FreeNAS VM run on the SSD. Then have a ZFS pool on my 4x3TB's for storage to the FreeNAS. Then I could have a windows or linux VM running on the 1TB for say a game server?

Connection plan would be:
Local SATA on motherboard -> 40GB SSD and 1TB
IBM -> 4X3TB for ZFS pool.

Trying to save the other SAS port on the IBM so I can upgrade down the road
 
All but the last part. Why put the linux VM game server on a separate disk? It will work just fine on the ZFS pool. Added bonus is that if you are updating/changing something on the linux guest, you can take a ZFS snapshot first and if it screws up, rollback... i.e. there is no real use for the 1TB disk in this scenario...
 
I agree with the above,

Dont waste you 1TB drive on a single datastore.

You use for snapshot backups or buy two more an make another ZFS pool.


If you use NFS, your performance will not be fantastic but it will work with a few low IO vms.

I just installed Open Indiana and Napp-IT, I heard they work better together as a VM then Nas4Free. NAS4Free is VERY simple though and will meet you needs. If you ever feel like you need more performance you can just add SSD for caching or make a slightly bigger array. - Or just put VMs on a SSD...
 
Plan was to only have the ZFS pool for my home media stuff and let the linux VM have it's own space so it won't eat into my personal space. I'd buy more drives to make another ZFS pool, I just don't have the funds and won't for a good while.
 
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