File sever in VM

[NanoHavoc]

is running a file server/ something like freeNAS in a VM a bad idea.

The VM could have 100% uptime, but I was just curious if it doesn't bode well.

Like windows home server or freeNAS or freeBSD are the two things I'm looking at mostly to manage my files/backups/ etc

But i was just curious to the risks of not running off a dedicated box, Or could i make windows home server the HOST OS and run VMs inside of that?

 

[dsumike]

is running a file server/ something like freeNAS in a VM a bad idea.

Running your file server as a VM with a quality hypervisor, like the free ESXi, is both perfectly acceptable and a very common setup.

Or could i make windows home server the HOST OS and run VMs inside of that?

I would NOT recommend this though, especially if you are using Windows Home Server. Use a native hypervisor whenever possible. Again, I personally prefer ESXi and have had excellent luck with it.

 

[NanoHavoc]

Why would you reccomond against using windows home server( not that im against not using it as it will save me $$$) Im just curious to know why it's bad.

I'm happy to see its a common setup!

 

[toast0]

In my experience (which wasn't with a native hypervisor), I/O bandwidth when in a VM is not good compared to running on real hardware. Definitely do some benchmarking and see if it's inline with what the hardware should be able to do and what your expectations are.

 

[NanoHavoc]

Yeah, I was wondering about that as well. I will definately keep an eye out for that and see if it's worth it. Still curious why windows home server would be a bad host OS to run vms in since that would take away the problem mentioned by dsumike

 

[_Gea]

is running a file server/ something like freeNAS in a VM a bad idea.

The VM could have 100% uptime, but I was just curious if it doesn't bode well.

Like windows home server or freeNAS or freeBSD are the two things I'm looking at mostly to manage my files/backups/ etc

But i was just curious to the risks of not running off a dedicated box, Or could i make windows home server the HOST OS and run VMs inside of that?

You can run a storage server-OS in a VM without problems. I use a lot of them with my all-in-one.
But if you expect barebone quality regarding speed, it is essential to have real hardware access to
disk controller and disks (pass-through). Using virtual disks for your virtual storageserver is a no-go.

A usable setup is
- a barebone virtualizer that supports vt-d (pass-through of storage hardware) like ESXi
- a storage-server OS (I prefer ZFS server based on Solaris), used as file-server and ESXi datastore
- other VM's

Windows is not the best base of any virtual server solution - lacks pass-through and too often you need reboots and security updates.
Also ZFS is a much better storage filesystem than NTFS.

One of the most stable and the most used platforms for virtualisation is ESXi.
I would suggest it also.

 

[NanoHavoc]

What do you mean real hardware access, do you mean like actual hard drives and not just a virtualized partition? In my case I would have the hard drives completely dedicated to this storage OS, not sure what you mean by virtual disks

 

[Dangman]

Still curious why windows home server would be a bad host OS to run vms in since that would take away the problem mentioned by dsumike

As Gea pointed out, it lacks pass-through of hardware or native hypervisor. As such, you're gonna see performance hits, weird storage issues, and such. However, Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V is a fairly solid option if you want to stick with windows or don't like ESXi for whatever reason.

What do you mean real hardware access, do you mean like actual hard drives and not just a virtualized partition?

Yes. Or even an entire storage controller + drives.

In my case I would have the hard drives completely dedicated to this storage OS, not sure what you mean by virtual disks

Because some virtualization options and methods won't allow to you to give the hard drive directly to the VM. Think of the virtual disk as a folder actually. You'd have to first create a virtual disk or "folder" on the hard drive and then pass the virtual disk/folder to the VM. The virtual disk/folder can be made to use the hard drive's entire available space. That method has some performance and compatibility issues. As dsumike recommended, you want to use a hypervisor. The two hypervisor options I see used the most in home setups are ESXi and Windows 2008 + Hyper V.

 

[dsumike]

Why would you reccomond against using windows home server( not that im against not using it as it will save me $$$) Im just curious to know why it's bad.

I was not commenting on WHS specifically. WHS is fine if that's your preference for yoru file server. I was simply saying I would not recommend running your VM's within a conventional operating system environment. When your hypervisor layer is running as a distinct second software level, guest operating systems will run at the third level above the hardware... this will produce sub-optimal results, as it looks like toast0 can attest to.

What do you mean real hardware access, do you mean like actual hard drives and not just a virtualized partition? In my case I would have the hard drives completely dedicated to this storage OS, not sure what you mean by virtual disks

Yes, we mean like "actual" access. When you use a naitive hypervisor on hardware that supports VT-d, you can "pass-through" various peripheral devices directly to the VM, such as hard disks. This gives the VM "direct" access to these components, mimicking as if it were a bare-metal install and had direct access itself.

This will help give you the performance you desire, compared to creating virtual hard disks. A virtual hard disk would be when your host OS has direct access to the disk and basically makes a file on the disk that is used by the VM. In this scenario when your VM does any action, it has to contact the hypervisor which then goes to the host OS which then goes to the disk, causing added levels of complexity that will cause performance degradation compared to when the VM itself can access the disk directly, bypassing the extra steps.

 

[_Gea]

What do you mean real hardware access, do you mean like actual hard drives and not just a virtualized partition? In my case I would have the hard drives completely dedicated to this storage OS, not sure what you mean by virtual disks

A virtual server usually emulates hardware for its guests like cpu, gpu, disk controller and disks.

Real hardware access for VM's is usually not possible for virtual machines. Only the hosting VM-server
has direct access to hardware. Guests can only access emulated hardware provided by the VM-server
(independent if its a barebone system like XEN or ESXi or an application on top of an OS like VMware workstation or Vbox).

example
If you use Windows as base OS, it has full hardware access.
If you use add a virtualization application on top you can create virtual machines with virtual network adapters,
virtual graphic cards, virtual storage controllers and virtual disk. Your guests uses these virtual hardware but your
virtual server needs to translate to real hardware which is not acceptable for a fast fileserver.

Real hardware acccess for a virtualized server means that the virtualized os can access real hardware with its own native driver
just like it would do when running not being virtualized but on real hardware.

read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine

 

[NanoHavoc]

So then if I'm going to use virtualazation as a solution for my file server, then I want the Host OS of the whole computer to be something like you guys pointed out, Exsi, or the windows hyper v 2008?

This is correct?


So if I used Exsi , would I still need a virtual machine within that to control the storage, and this will elimate the performance issues, or how would I go about doing it?

 

[_Gea]

So then if I'm going to use virtualazation as a solution for my file server, then I want the Host OS of the whole computer to be something like you guys pointed out, Exsi, or the windows hyper v 2008?

This is correct?


So if I used Exsi , would I still need a virtual machine within that to control the storage, and this will elimate the performance issues, or how would I go about doing it?

ESXi is more like a bios or a firmware. Its a minimal OS, managed by a Windows application
Its storage featutes are nearly zero compared to a ZFS storage OS like Solaris (or FreeBSD).

You use ESXi, if you want to virtualize some systems on top, each with best possible performance and stability.
Maybee you want to look at my miniHowto http://www.napp-it.org/doc/downloads/all-in-one.pdf

You use Hyper-V if you mainly use Windows as base OS and for guests and if you do not need high-end ZFS storage features

 

[NanoHavoc]

okay that link helped me understand it a lot more. I appreciate all this help. This stuff is really amazing.

 

[cantalup]

You can run a storage server-OS in a VM without problems. I use a lot of them with my all-in-one.
But if you expect barebone quality regarding speed, it is essential to have real hardware access to
disk controller and disks (pass-through). .....

this is debatable . some say OK/Yes/No .. and never ending discussion.

on real-life production server , dedicated storage server is the key, when troubleshooting the hardware problems especially and need a quick recovery or back to online.
on non trivial production server, such as running storage server in VM with access via passthrough is suitable. just imagine how long for troubleshooting when something happens in hardware mostly. or something "corrupted" due to any failures.

both VM and hardware based are doable, just the matter of preferences ..

I just let everyone decide to take the path that server the purposes .

 

[_Gea]

I use several dedicated storage server (mainly file services and backup) and several all in ones (dedicated storage use for ESXi). Both have advantages and disadvantages.

I mainly use ESXi with virtualized storage to have no single point of failure and to avoid the problem with
fast enough and stable SAN network hardware (I have 10 Gbit CX4 Ethernet) - each of my ESXi machines has its own local SAN storage server.

But of course, its edu-use where flexibility is important and low prices are mandatory (free ESXi, no redundant SAN
Server/ Network infrastructure for every installation)

Troubleshooting on my dedicated systems is not easier due to more hardware components (server, switches, cabling),
troubleshooting in software only is mostly faster. And in case of problerms, fastest method is just plugging a ZFS pool
in another all-in-one system, import the pool, NFS share it and start the VM's there-
if you can allow 30 min downtime.

Beside EDU and home use, a virtualized storage server is mainly for smaller installations and developer needs.
If you have a redundant HA/ SAN/ network installation with enough money, you do not need.

 

[NanoHavoc]

I plan to have this VM doing quiet a few other things too, but my main goal is to just have a single place where I can have all of my hard drives hooked up and have them all accessable by any computer on the network.

That way each computer only has to have it's OS drive and that's it. Everything else would be on the network.

 

[_Gea]

I plan to have this VM doing quiet a few other things too, but my main goal is to just have a single place where I can have all of my hard drives hooked up and have them all accessable by any computer on the network.

That way each computer only has to have it's OS drive and that's it. Everything else would be on the network.

Thats All in One
One physical machine for all server needs (storage or services)

 

[NanoHavoc]

What would you reccomend I use for an all in one that can be virtualized with other VMs(that wouldnt really be related to storage at all) ?

Solaris? Should I look into that?

 

[Dangman]

I plan to have this VM doing quiet a few other things too, but my main goal is to just have a single place where I can have all of my hard drives hooked up and have them all accessable by any computer on the network.

That way each computer only has to have it's OS drive and that's it. Everything else would be on the network.

Yeah Gea linked an awesome guide on how to accomplish most if not all of that. You should check it out.

 

[_Gea]

What would you reccomend I use for an all in one that can be virtualized with other VMs(that wouldnt really be related to storage at all) ?

Solaris? Should I look into that?

For each task, there is a best with..
For games or common apps its Windows
For multimedia its OSX
For virtualisation its ESXi
For storage its OpenIndiana/Solaris (my opinion)

 

[NanoHavoc]

So virtualization doesn't really support a wide variety of hardware does it?

Like for this all in one, I'm not going to just be able to use a random desktop PC I have am I?

Am I going to need to buy server grade stuff or will I have issues with regular desktop hardware (like socket 1366 or 775 or something)

 

[_Gea]

So virtualization doesn't really support a wide variety of hardware does it?

Like for this all in one, I'm not going to just be able to use a random desktop PC I have am I?

Am I going to need to buy server grade stuff or will I have issues with regular desktop hardware (like socket 1366 or 775 or something)

its not virtualization in general (vt-x in Intel terminology). its hardware virtualization (vt-d at Intel or IOMMU at AMD).
If your guests need real hardware for performance, you need quite modern hardware. Some desktop chipsets supports these new features,
but the serverchipsets from Intel (or AMD) are the first choice. Mainboard, CPU and Bios needs to support this feature.

On a new machine, it should not be a problem. The premium is minimal.
Intel Server class mainboards are from 130 Euro+ (example SuperMicro uATX Serie X9)

 

[NanoHavoc]

On a new machine, like how new? How about a 1366 board, like the rampage II extreme or the MSI big bang x, Those are the two computers I have laying around that I thought I might try and use for this. But I also think I would need vt-d (i think thats the correct term for hardware virtualization) for the hard drives to use for my storage needs.

I suppose if I HAVE to buy a whole new system for it, It wouldn't be that big of a deal. but I'd really prefer to try and use what I have as I wouldn't have to spend nearly as much.

 

[_Gea]

On a new machine, like how new? How about a 1366 board, like the rampage II extreme or the MSI big bang x, Those are the two computers I have laying around that I thought I might try and use for this. But I also think I would need vt-d (i think thats the correct term for hardware virtualization) for the hard drives to use for my storage needs.

I suppose if I HAVE to buy a whole new system for it, It wouldn't be that big of a deal. but I'd really prefer to try and use what I have as I wouldn't have to spend nearly as much.

There are lots of 1366 boards supporting vt-d.
But you must care about Mainboard, Bios and CPU
All of them must support vt-d

Mostly you can try with ESXi. It will not work at all if not supported.

 

[NanoHavoc]

I looked it up, and it seems like the big bang power x and the i7 920 supports VT-d.

I beleive if the board supports it, the BIOS should too, So I shouldn't have any problems using it then


EDIT: actually the i7 920 does not support it. Looks like I will have to get a xeon If I'd like to use it for that. Shouldn't be a problem though honestly.
double edit, it might be a problem cause it's not all xeons, just a wierd couple.

I don't know what proccesor I could use with that board now, doesn't look like there are any that support vt-d. Wierd how the high end(at one time) boards dont support stuff like this.

double edit: Hmmm. actually, I was going off intels site, and it doesnt say the 920 supports it, but it doesnt say it doesnt either. Hmmm.

An thread on toms says they do, but its toms lol.....guess i have to dig deeper.

 

[Dangman]

With the i7 9xx series, VT-D support was up to the motherboard, not the CPU. So as long as your mobo supports VT-D, you'll be fine with that i7 920.

 

[NanoHavoc]

Awesome, that's good too know. The MSI big bang power x says it supports VT-d so I should be good!
Nice to know, was worried.

Hopefully I run into no hardware issues since I wont be using popularly supported hardware.