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Hyper-v server 2012 passthrough

C

Clickinaway

n00b
Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Messages
33
Ok, please tell me where my logic is flawed. Hyper visor running on ssd on a sata 3 mobo channel, I intend to run another ssd on the other sata 3 channel for my vm images. But I want the vhds to be on the platter array. I have 6 hotswap sata bays free and intend to have them connected to hardware raid controller, and divided and into 2 arrays. One using 4 in raid 10 for deeper storage with not much writing occurring, 2 mirrored for my RDBMS. This may be flawed in itself. :)
Next question is loaded: can I configure the raid arrays as above and present them to my vms as 2 volumes? Will hyper v just pass through the controller or individual discs? My ideal situation that the raid 10 array be where my freenas storage is. Ok, flamesuit on, please rip holes in this because I'm sure as I have it laid out now its just plain wrong.
Oh, and yes, system supports Intel VT-d.
Thanks!
 
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Hyper-v cant do passthrough (pci-e cards, usb, hba, etc. ..) like esxi, only individual disks.
 
Hmm...I'm fairly certain you can present a RAID volume and let the hypervisor divide it up, right? [See embedded link]

UPDATE: going with a single RAID 10 array, unless I hear otherwise about freeNAS needing passthrough disks. . Question still remains: I can present the entire array to my hypervisor and divide the space among my VHD's as required, correct?
I keep reading you are just supposed to pass disks to freeNAS directly, correct? Why is this? I won't be able to create a separate VHD on my RAID array and give that to freeNAS?
 
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Clickinaway said:
Ok, please tell me where my logic is flawed. Hyper visor running on ssd on a sata 3 mobo channel, I intend to run another ssd on the other sata 3 channel for my vm images. But I want the vhds to be on the platter array. I have 6 hotswap sata bays free and intend to have them connected to hardware raid controller, and divided and into 2 arrays. One using 4 in raid 10 for deeper storage with not much writing occurring, 2 mirrored for my RDBMS. This may be flawed in itself. :)
Next question is loaded: can I configure the raid arrays as above and present them to my vms as 2 volumes? Will hyper v just pass through the controller or individual discs? My ideal situation that the raid 10 array be where my freenas storage is. Ok, flamesuit on, please rip holes in this because I'm sure as I have it laid out now its just plain wrong.
Oh, and yes, system supports Intel VT-d.
Thanks!
Click to expand...


Yes you can do what you are looking for. Once you create the raid array, the hypervisor will see it as a single disk. You can then setup the VM and attach that 'disk' directly.
 
Clickinaway said:
Hmm...I'm fairly certain you can present a RAID volume and let the hypervisor divide it up, right? [See embedded link]

UPDATE: going with a single RAID 10 array, unless I hear otherwise about freeNAS needing passthrough disks. . Question still remains: I can present the entire array to my hypervisor and divide the space among my VHD's as required, correct?
I keep reading you are just supposed to pass disks to freeNAS directly, correct? Why is this? I won't be able to create a separate VHD on my RAID array and give that to freeNAS?
Click to expand...

I missed this update. If you use the disk pass through, only 1 VM will be able to use the entire array. In fact you have to take the disk offline on the hypervisor to use it in pass through mode. So no other VM will be able to use the space.

I think what they mean by passthrough directly, is to not have a raid setup in the first place. Freenas wants access to the 4 disks directly to create its own virtual array. If you were to setup the raid 10, then create 4 VHDs which you give to the freenas VM, the VM won't know the difference. It will think it has 4 disks attached. But you will most likely hit performance issues here as you have a ton of extra overhead (Virtual array -> Virtual Disks -> Actual Raid Array).
 
Biz,
now we're getting to the core of it :D ! ya know, I hadn't even thought about creating 4 VHD's and giving those to FreeNAS, that's an interesting thought. But the more I read, the more people say just give FreeNAS the discs and let it do it's thing.

I've been warned about creating 'islands of storage' but here's my latest idea, bear with me.
Keeping in mind I have only 6 hotswap bays at my disposal, and have several SATA II channels on the mobo.

Maybe I'll do this:
  • Put 2x2TB drives hooked up to the mobo
  • present those to FreeNAS for RAID 1
  • Add a hardware based RAID Controller
  • Hook my remaining 4 SATA Drives to the RAID via SATA backplane
  • Run those in RAID 10

Seems clean enough, right? The 2TB of available storage will be plenty for what i'm trying to do. I'm thinking about having the FreeNAS on just a Virtual Network Switch set to private as another guest OS should be the only one which needs to access the guest share (my Plex Media Server...maybe on Ubuntu). After the bulk of the media is there, it should really just be Reads to be concerned with.

Comments? I think I like where this is going.
 
Why do people really waste their time with pass-through. Good lord the amount of headaches and caveats are just not worth it. You might at best gain like <5% performance.
 
Wrench,
thanks for the tip, but I'm not sure if its entirely helpful. Nearly everything I've read suggests that FreeNAS is requires direct access to each disk (pass through, no RAID). Do you have anything to support the contrary?
 
Clickinaway said:
Wrench,
thanks for the tip, but I'm not sure if its entirely helpful. Nearly everything I've read suggests that FreeNAS is requires direct access to each disk (pass through, no RAID). Do you have anything to support the contrary?
Click to expand...

I am using freenas with out a passthrough on esxi works just fine. They are independent disks.

How come are you just not using CIFS/NFS thats already built into the 2012?
 
Hey guys, thanks for the response. To be clear, i'm using Hyper-V Server 2012 (the bare-metal hypervisor).

One of the guests I plan to be CentOS or Ubuntu for my Plex Media Server. I liked the idea of being able to store some data (my music at least) in FreeNAS given all of the different protocols you can share the data with. I did not intend to use ZFS, and perhaps all of the comments i've read so far about FreeNAS needing direct access to the discs was due to the assumption of ZFS?


A goal of mine with this build was leveraging the redundancy of (hardware) RAID and at the very least needing an HBA to support the 6 ports on my SATA backplane. I'm only using the 2 SATA III channels on my mobo for SSD (one for hypervisor [a bit of a waste i know] and the other for several guest OS's with the mechanical drives for deeper storage).
 
Clickinaway said:
Hey guys, thanks for the response. To be clear, i'm using Hyper-V Server 2012 (the bare-metal hypervisor).

I did not intend to use ZFS, and perhaps all of the comments i've read so far about FreeNAS needing direct access to the discs was due to the assumption of ZFS?
Click to expand...

No, the point is if you want to virtualize a Storage OS with similar performance like a barebone NAS/SAN (comparable to my All-In-One idea on Esxi), your storage VM needs full disk access and control for performance, reliability, hot plug and smart control.

If you use Windows (and ntfs or ReFS) for storage, you need no passthrough. and you have no pass-through available.
The question if ZFS is much better and faster than ReFS is another question.
 
I wasn't planning on using windows for storage...trying to use as many free guest OS's as possible here. So, what you are saying does (sort of) nullify what Wrench had said?

I'm going to try to find some information regarding your all in one idea.

EDIT: I thought I had read about some folks having issues with performance and storage pools? Also, given that I'd like to use (potentially) Ubuntu to host my Plex Media Server, I don't think there's support for ReFS.
http://community.spiceworks.com/top...are-vs-server-2012-storage-spaces-with-parity
 
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Ubuntu would get a drive but it doesn't have direct access to the disk its a virtual disk that's all. Basically ReFS is for the windows storage.
 
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If you will be using hardware raid I would suggest this:

Install Hyper-V on its own set of Raid-1 Drives. (or flash drive)
Format your Raid-10 with ReFS.
Share the Raid-10 (or a folder on the Raid-10) as a Windows Fileshare.
Install your VM to run Plex, point to the fileshare you created earlier.

Basically, your Hyper-V will also be your fileserver. No need to run another guest just to share files for such a small scale setup especially if you are not planning on using ZFS anyways.
 
leeleatherwood said:
If you will be using hardware raid I would suggest this:

Install Hyper-V on its own set of Raid-1 Drives. (or flash drive)
Format your Raid-10 with ReFS.
Share the Raid-10 (or a folder on the Raid-10) as a Windows Fileshare.
Install your VM to run Plex, point to the fileshare you created earlier.

Basically, your Hyper-V will also be your fileserver. No need to run another guest just to share files for such a small scale setup especially if you are not planning on using ZFS anyways.
Click to expand...

Ok that sounds like a great plan. Hyper-V is on SSD right now. I got impatient and didn't buy a USB that hyper-V could mount, so I kind of blew it there. I actually tossed in some WD greens I had kicking around so I could give it a go. Need to purchase my drives still...thats my big investment.

I had to read that twice, but it makes goods sense. /Thanks!
 
Refs is used by no business, think twice before taking advice from randomers
 
bAMtan2 said:
Refs is used by no business, think twice before taking advice from randomers
Click to expand...

Whilst my personal opinion is that I would stick with NTFS over REFS (esp with SQL), not sure how you know that no business in the world anywhere is not using it?!
 
If you are looking to run mostly linux/open source OSes, I would advise against Hyper-V period. I love and run Hyper-V, but you get most of the goodness with it using Windows Guests. I would rather use VMWare for mostly Open Source guests.

Also, as said, just have the host take care of the disks if running an All-in-one. I run my hosts with a combination of hardware raid volumes (for very critical data) and storage space volumes (just basic mirrored storage spaces). Works great and performance has been excellent.
 
We run REFS on over 60 (physical) servers, no problems.

NTFS for the vhd's.
Click to expand...

Yes, which I had known that 2nd statement before I created that volume. Oh well, the drive array is still TBD, just got impatient and used some 1TB greens I had kicking around.
 
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