ESXi, Virtual Machines, and File Servers

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cbutters

Gawd
Joined
Dec 30, 2005
Messages
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So I am kicking around the idea of setting up a server with ESXi, and moving to a virtualized ZFS backup system for my 8 x 2TB HDDs, My reason for wanting to do this is for future expandability with 4k sector and 3TB+ HDDs, I would also use the ESXi to run my virtualized web server.

My main question becomes.... where are the virtual machine's data stored? If I am virtualizing a ZFS server to handle my storage for everything, it doesn't seem possible that it would be able to load itself off the same drives it will be controlling... (sorry if I'm not being very clear here)

So if I have a main ZFS storage location for all my files, can I store my virtual machines on this storage location to run through ESXi? or do I need to invest in some sort of OS hdd or ssd to run the virtual machines off of apart from the ZFS storage pool? This seems to be getting excessive, especially since you already need to invest in a ZIL SSD and maybe even another for L2ARC right?


Also, I'm debating ZFS in freenas, openindiana, and napp-it flavors, etc whats the consensus on the different options here, what would work best for someone who has been running windows servers for years, knows a bit of linux command line, but likes graphical representation of what is going on with system and storage.

Thanks for your help and recommendations.
 
I was about to start a separate thread for a similar question, but seeing this I think my goals share a similar path. I would also love to know if you can set up a vm for zfs and then use that as an iscsi target(or some other method?) for a datastore on that same box. Seems like it could be a way to have a dedup'd datastore on a single box if you were running a few cloned vm's.
 
Chicken and egg problem - you need at least some kind of local storage for the virtualized storage OS. It can be a cheap small HD - NOT a USB stick.
 
Hm, forgive me for going slightly outside the OP's parameters,, but assuming you have other datastores that could hold the zfs vm, could you then grab an extra datastore for esxi out of the zfs vm? I want to believe yes as once the zfs vm is up and running it should be ale to present itself like any other san, shouldn't it? The datastore just wouldn't be available for other vm images that might use it until the zfs vm is booted. Or is there something else that would prevent that?
 
Haven't checked into his thread in a while, I'll go read through some of it again. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
danswartz said:
Chicken and egg problem - you need at least some kind of local storage for the virtualized storage OS. It can be a cheap small HD - NOT a USB stick.
Click to expand...
ok, so if I understand correctly, it will go like this:

ESXi to be installed on a some sort of OS drive...
By necessity, the VM for the virtualized ZFS drive will necessarily need to go on the OS drive as well, on a different partition.

Once the ZFS storage has been created and the virtual machine is running, I can then virtualize other pcs through ESXi using the ZFS storage as long as the ZFS virtual machine is running...right?
 
Basically. You don't actually need to put ESXi on the OS drive - it will go on a USB drive just fine.
 
danswartz said:
Basically. You don't actually need to put ESXi on the OS drive - it will go on a USB drive just fine.
Click to expand...

so is the benefit to running esxi on the usb drive easier installation and ability to wipe the OS drive periodically when you want without affecting the ESXi configuration? Does running on a usb drive vs. a small ssd w/ ESXi come with any performance penalty? or does esxi just load into memory and is done accessing storage?
 
It's mainly that the esxi config&code runs in a ram FS, and if you keep the datastore separate, you can reinstall, etc, without impacting any VMs stored on the local disk.
 
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