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esxi build
hi guys, i am in the planning stages for my next gen server and i am considering going with an esxi whitebox. but i need your help on the actual setup.
i am currently running solaris 11 express with a mirrored rpool (2 x 160Glaptop drives) and a main data pool comprising 14 1.5TB drives in two raidz2 vdev's...i also have 2 40G ocz2 ssd's as a zil/cache. it is running vbox with 4 vm's and also serving up CIFS and iscsi to the lan.
the new esxi server will run 4+ vm's including...
- solaris 11 express handling nas/sam duties
- two centos machines
- two windows server 2008 r2 machines
- from time to time will run cucm and other vm's to play with
the new server spec's are looking like....
recent sandybridge quad xeon with 16Gb ecc ram
esxi on 1G usb stick i already have +(SLC)+
i an not certain of exactly how to best set the system up...an want to take best advantage of zfs as a reliable datastore.
so, let's assume i am going to have a solaris 11 express serving up the vm's to esxi via iscsi...(i assume this is the best way?) i first need to create the S11E machine in esxi...and here is the first problem....where do i store the S11E machine?
if i use a single drive, it will not be redundant..i thought i could create the vm definition,store the definition of the vm on the 1G drive (i assumed it's a small xml) and then setup the disks as passthrough and install S11E and tell it to use a mirror set for the rpool and install...but nope...it seems that is not possible, it wants a drive to store them vm and will not accept the usb (esxi o/s drive) ??? how annoying.
esxi wants a drive to install the vm to straight up...but i thought that was the whole point of esxi...that i could pass the "native" drives through to the os and install onto the native drives as though esxi was not even there....+
why can i not store the vm definition, (surely a small xml file) to say the usb drive?
in order to get a mirrored store for the S11E vm, do i need to create a hardware raid1 array? if so, this is very disapointing. i want redundancy,but i want zfs to look after that...not have a hardware raid storing my vm.
i sincerely hope this makes sense...as i am new to the esxi world.
any and all tips on how best to set this whitebox up would be very much appreciated.
i have read and googled and read again the many guides...but i am still unsure about the need to have a hardware raid in order to gain redundancy or if there is a way to pass the os drives through without the need for additional drives to store the vm.
ps.
once i have S11E setup i will create iscsi volumes to contain the other esxi vm's.
i also read that ssd's with their high iops can make a significant improvement to the performance of vm's...i may repurpose the two 40G ssd's as a new pool to hold the vm's and regularly back them up to the main pool. thought's on this?
cheers,
dav
hi guys, i am in the planning stages for my next gen server and i am considering going with an esxi whitebox. but i need your help on the actual setup.
i am currently running solaris 11 express with a mirrored rpool (2 x 160Glaptop drives) and a main data pool comprising 14 1.5TB drives in two raidz2 vdev's...i also have 2 40G ocz2 ssd's as a zil/cache. it is running vbox with 4 vm's and also serving up CIFS and iscsi to the lan.
the new esxi server will run 4+ vm's including...
- solaris 11 express handling nas/sam duties
- two centos machines
- two windows server 2008 r2 machines
- from time to time will run cucm and other vm's to play with
the new server spec's are looking like....
recent sandybridge quad xeon with 16Gb ecc ram
esxi on 1G usb stick i already have +(SLC)+
i an not certain of exactly how to best set the system up...an want to take best advantage of zfs as a reliable datastore.
so, let's assume i am going to have a solaris 11 express serving up the vm's to esxi via iscsi...(i assume this is the best way?) i first need to create the S11E machine in esxi...and here is the first problem....where do i store the S11E machine?
if i use a single drive, it will not be redundant..i thought i could create the vm definition,store the definition of the vm on the 1G drive (i assumed it's a small xml) and then setup the disks as passthrough and install S11E and tell it to use a mirror set for the rpool and install...but nope...it seems that is not possible, it wants a drive to store them vm and will not accept the usb (esxi o/s drive) ??? how annoying.
esxi wants a drive to install the vm to straight up...but i thought that was the whole point of esxi...that i could pass the "native" drives through to the os and install onto the native drives as though esxi was not even there....+
why can i not store the vm definition, (surely a small xml file) to say the usb drive?
in order to get a mirrored store for the S11E vm, do i need to create a hardware raid1 array? if so, this is very disapointing. i want redundancy,but i want zfs to look after that...not have a hardware raid storing my vm.
i sincerely hope this makes sense...as i am new to the esxi world.
any and all tips on how best to set this whitebox up would be very much appreciated.
i have read and googled and read again the many guides...but i am still unsure about the need to have a hardware raid in order to gain redundancy or if there is a way to pass the os drives through without the need for additional drives to store the vm.
ps.
once i have S11E setup i will create iscsi volumes to contain the other esxi vm's.
i also read that ssd's with their high iops can make a significant improvement to the performance of vm's...i may repurpose the two 40G ssd's as a new pool to hold the vm's and regularly back them up to the main pool. thought's on this?
cheers,
dav