Windows Home Server (WHS) - Virtualization Setup and Info

[marcoi]

Hi All - I wanted to start a thread about running Windows Home Server as a VM. There hasn't been much info on the web on how to exactly do this. So I figure why not start one up and document as much as possible on how people are currently doing it.

So to begin I will list what I've done so far and have experienced.

Current Host OS Hardware:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASRock M3A785GXH/128M AM3 AMD 785G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Black Processor Model HDZ720WFGIBOX
COOLER MASTER ELITE 335 RC-335-KKN1-GP Black SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Antec TruePower New TP-550 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.3 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE
SANS DIGITAL HA-DAT-4ESPCIE PCI-Express x8 SATA II Controller Card
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drives
Kingston value memory 8gb ddr3-1066
Rosewill RSV-S8 SATA 3G 3.5" HDD 8-Bay RAID 0/1/10/5/JBOD Storage Enclosure System with 120mm cooling fan/ Port Multiplier
various Hardrives 400gb, 500gb x2, 650gb x2, 1TB

Host Info:
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Host OS: Windows Vista Ultimate SP2 x64bit (64bit allows access to memory greater then 3.5 gigs)
VM Software: Vmware Server 2.0.1
Goal: Reduce physical hardware needed, reduce power requirements while using vista to provide HTPC duties and WHS running on same hardware within VM.
Watts: Currently between 112 to 121 watts normal usage. (via APC UPS monitoring)


What I learned so far:
-----------------------------------------------------------
I decided to use vmware server as it is free. It also has ability to start up guests and shut them down with the host os. This is useful as my host PC is setup on UPS with auto shutdown for power outages. (i recommend having a UPS for WHS usuage)



VM guest Setting for WHS:
----------------------------------------------------------------
cpu: 1
memory: 2gb
disk: 1 IDE at 120gb (WHS will create 2 partitions, one 20gb for OS, on 100gb for Data drive.)
disk2: Scsi at xxxgb ( one per all other disks you plan to add to whs)
SCSI: LSI
Template was windows SBS server 2003.
Host setting - under additional memory - select (Fit all virtual machine memory into reserved host RAM) option
Add the following parameters.
MemTrimRate = "0"
sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE"
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"
mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"

Added 9-25-09: Delete devices that are not needed, ie sound card, floppy
set dvd-rom to client media and disconnected

Added 9-28-09: When adding Hard drives, select following options.
Under Disk Mode, select persistent if possible.
Under Polices, select Optimize for performance ( only if you have an UPS setup on host pc.)



WHS Install and Setup:
------------------------------------
Whs needs 1 IDE vdisk of at least 80GB to install, I choose 120gb for my install. This drive should be located on a separate physical hard drive then the host. Other vdrives should be set as scsi using the lsi adaptor. They can be added after the install of WHS.

I used a second 1TB as base for WHS VM. I created 1 ide disk sized 120 gb and installed WHS. After that I created a second vdisk and set it as scsi and used rest of space. Under WHS I also enabled write caching on the disk and enable adv performance under each hard drive policies tab. The scsi drive have performance already selected with choices grayed out.

Note: When creating a vdisk, do not choose pre-allocate space now. It takes forever with that amount of space and usually crashes. (at least in my testing) I also read that splitting the disk into 2gb files degrades performance. I haven't tested to see if it is true. Also I just found an issue that if you choose the max available space for the drive, as WHS filled the drive up, I started to run into issues within the host saying low disk space. I am now changing the size to leave 2 gigs of space on the hard drive within the host.

In addition it seems vmware server does not like having it's vdisk on a hardrive with compression turned on.

I recommend having defrag program installed on whs as well as host os. I am currently using perfectdisk 10 whs and ws.

If you are having slow network performance, then under you host's network card properties, turn off Large Send Offload.

9-25-09 Added: Forgot to mention do not take snapshots, it will degrade performance of the whs. Instead it is better to stop the vmware, and copy the folder/files of the whs vmware off to another drive. IMHO


Benchmarks:
------------------------------------------------------------------
Decided to put up some benchmark results.

Using Sandra 2009.9.15.124


File System test on C drive:
-----------------------------------------
Drive Index: 79.66MB/s
Random Access Time: 9.29ms

Physical disks on virtual ide (c: d
-------------------------------------------
Drive index: 97MB/s
Random Access Time: 11 ms




So far the only real issue I ran into is the low disk on host. Currently I been running this setup for 3 weeks.

Any questions let me know. I will keep updating with more info I find/remember.

Hope this helps.

marcoi

 

[sabregen]

if I had a bit more resources on any of my non-gaming rigs at home, I would probably do just the opposite, and run WHS on the physical machine, with other VMs inside of workstation, to facilitate additional functionality. However, I have been meaning to test WHS as a VM, as well. Thanks for the info, this is a good start.

Seeif you can find the .vmx mods that you did, as I am sure others will want to know what they were.

 

[marcoi]

I updated the original post.

As for your point of running whs as host, you are then limited to 32bit OS and 3.5gb of memory. Then again if that is all the memory you have then its a mute point.

marcoi

 

[sabregen]

WHS as a VM fundamentally changes your gameplan though. Part of what makes WHS so attractive is the way that it handles data, and specifically the ease of replication and backups. I will concede that it is largely your own personal usage that will dictate which method is best. But, bare this in mind:

1.) If WHS is running as a VM, then potentially, it's storage location for the system drive (c:\) could be a physical disk, that at some point in the future could fail. If this occurs, then you will have to rebuild the VM. If multiple .VMDK "disks" are stored on the same physical drive on the host, and that drive has died, then possibly the entire VM, and all of it's resources (users, permissions, shares, data replication, etc) will also be lost. This is the primary functionality that most people are using WHS to address. If you are manually managing which physical drive the different .VMDKs reside on, then you have removed the very feature that makes WHS attractive from the equation, which is the lack of requirement for management, as far as where the data lives.

2.) Running WHS as the host OS allows you to make sure that any VMs that you are running on top of WHS will also have backups (through connector software) and that those backups are replicated (if you so choose).

I'm gonna test them both, actually. There's interesting reasons and considerations for doing it either way. Certainly, you are correct on the limitations of WHS as the host, as it is just built on Win2k3 x86, and has all of the resource limitations that a 32bit OS carries.

Perhaps I am being single minded here, I am willing to concede that. Can you tell me what purpose running WHS as a VM fulfills? I can only think of drawbacks, for some reason. Though, admittedly, running WHS as the host OS makes it much less attractive a virtualization host for other guests, due to the RAM limitation.

 

[nessus]

Perhaps I am being single minded here, I am willing to concede that. Can you tell me what purpose running WHS as a VM fulfills? I can only think of drawbacks, for some reason. Though, admittedly, running WHS as the host OS makes it much less attractive a virtualization host for other guests, due to the RAM limitation.

I'm running mine as a VM under Hyper-V versus 3 disks in an external SATA (each of thse disks is mapped into the VM, not accessible by the host) array along with one drive internal to my host. The fourth disk in my external array is the backup drive for my server. If something catastrophic happend, I have data duplication turned on for everything, so i can take the external array alone and rebuild my entire internal infrastructure if I had to do so. (2 media PCs,1 laptop, 1 Vista VM on my wife's Mac, and my workstation).

WHS has very low resource utilization. I run mine with 600 MB of RAM and 80% of 1 core of a Phenom x3 2.1 GHz processor allocated. I've trimmed the RAM as low as 530 MB when I was tighter on RAM on my host without any noticable effect.

I also have a 2k8 R2 DC, 2k8 R2 IIS/FTP server, 2003 FTP/IIS/Exchange Server, and a 2k8 R8 VPN/EChoware/RemoteDesktop Proxy running on the same host. None of which is very high use running from the main OS drive of the same box. My host is a HP Home desktop box that cost about $500 a couple of years back.

 

[marcoi]

WHS as a VM fundamentally changes your gameplan though. Part of what makes WHS so attractive is the way that it handles data, and specifically the ease of replication and backups. I will concede that it is largely your own personal usage that will dictate which method is best. But, bare this in mind:

1.) If WHS is running as a VM, then potentially, it's storage location for the system drive (c:\) could be a physical disk, that at some point in the future could fail. If this occurs, then you will have to rebuild the VM. If multiple .VMDK "disks" are stored on the same physical drive on the host, and that drive has died, then possibly the entire VM, and all of it's resources (users, permissions, shares, data replication, etc) will also be lost. This is the primary functionality that most people are using WHS to address. If you are manually managing which physical drive the different .VMDKs reside on, then you have removed the very feature that makes WHS attractive from the equation, which is the lack of requirement for management, as far as where the data lives.

I had a hard time with deciding how to do backs ups of the host OS, guest OS and data. For now I decided to use vista built in backup for host OS and back it up to a separate hardrive. For the guest, I am just coping the vmware files off to a separate drive. As for data I am using 2 1TB external hard drive and a file sync program to keep the data current. I plan to do this monthly.

So if the host goes, I can either move the vm off to another pc, or rebuild the host from the vista backup. If I lost a drive that holds a vmdk, then I can restore lost data from the external drives.

I don't know if the above is best or will even work in the long run, only time will tell.

2.) Running WHS as the host OS allows you to make sure that any VMs that you are running on top of WHS will also have backups (through connector software) and that those backups are replicated (if you so choose).

I'm gonna test them both, actually. There's interesting reasons and considerations for doing it either way. Certainly, you are correct on the limitations of WHS as the host, as it is just built on Win2k3 x86, and has all of the resource limitations that a 32bit OS carries.

Perhaps I am being single minded here, I am willing to concede that. Can you tell me what purpose running WHS as a VM fulfills? I can only think of drawbacks, for some reason. Though, admittedly, running WHS as the host OS makes it much less attractive a virtualization host for other guests, due to the RAM limitation.

My current reason for running whs as a VM, is due to my need to combine the funcitons of htpc and whs to reduce hardware, and electric costs. In the end if WHS could be used to perform HTPC functions (play blueray movies, dvds, cd, etc.) then I wouldn't need to run it in vm. That said, even though running whs in a vm presents new challenges , it's low hardware resources almost make it a waste to run it on dedicated hardware which is using additional electricity.

marcoi

 

[sabregen]

if it didn't effectively just complicate the shit out of everything, I would run WHS as a VM as well, but the data migration and management when it operates in a VM is likely more than I am currently willing to manage, at home. I did start to build it as a VM on my dev box, so I guess I'll just have to see what I think.

The ironic part of all of this is the hardware platform of the WHS, and that I need an HTPC build. Specs:

Antec TruePower 550w ATX PSU
ASUS 780G mATX with 6x SATA, 1x IDE, 10x USB 2.0, HDMI, DVI, VGA, GbE
mid-tower case
DVD-burner
1x 1.0TB WD Green
1x WD 500GB
1x 320GB Seagate
1x 160gb (system)

Looks like an HTPC, no? That's because it originally was, and then I decided to fold down the file server, and do a WHS...but the HTPC was the only "extra" machine. Maybe you're not too far off the mark. I will have to consider it. I just wanted the WHS to be easy, and it is... until it gets in a VM, I think.

woe that neither of us has the additional hardware resources to run separate boxes, and the financial resources to keep them running. some people have all the luck, right?

 

[Romir]

I've previously run WHS in Server 2008 Hyper-V but had issues with extremely slow transfers that no one else seemed to have. The same hardware is now running it perfectly through Server 2008 R2. Network writes are now 75-80 MB/s going to 2TB green drives which is acceptable for no write caching to the VM (I think).

The disks are all pass through so no .vhd has been created for the OS drive. When pulled, the disks appear exactly like they would if they been run in a normal non-vm environment.

I'm considering picking up the $250 Rosewill 8 bay e-sata enclosure and running all the WHS drives from it while using the Chenbro's 4 hot swap bays for other dedicated VM disks. Server 2008 R2 is running off a 60gb Vertex inside, using up the 5th sata port on a DQ45EK.

Edit: Turns out the 1 MB/S transfers were caused by a 10 mbit sync which didn't manifest itself when WHS was installed on the bare metal. Replacing the cable has seemed to work so far.

 

[marcoi]

It be nice if vmware server had HD pass through. It make things a lot easier.

- I also updated the original post, organized it a little more, added additional info as well as benchmarks.

marcoi

 

[nitrobass24]

Ive done extensive WHS as a VM testing on several platforms and the only two worth doing IMO is VMware Workstation and 2008 R2 w/Hyper-V.

I choose the hyper-v route for me because its cheaper than Workstation. And I dont need all the bells and whistles that workstation provides for a WHS where I rarely access the console anyways.
Performance is good, networking could be better but is fast so no complaints.

The problem with most other hypervisors is the way they handle Disks.

 

[spectrumbx]

It be nice if vmware server had HD pass through. It make things a lot easier.

- I also updated the original post, organized it a little more, added additional info as well as benchmarks.

marcoi

It used to be possible to use raw disks in VMware Server (versoin 1.x).
In fact, it is still possible even with version 2.x.
It is just that it is no longer officially supported.

@OP
Running WHS in a VM is just a bad idea.
Or, at least, I would not trust a large amount of data under VMDK files.
Whereas a disk corruption would cause you to lose a few files when using the raw disk, the same disk corruption will cause you to lose a whole VMDK file and all the data in it.

Further, the uptime on most HTPCs is not all that great (we tend to always tweak them).
So, having your HTPC as the host is further a bad idea.

I say, scrap that idea and build a cheap physical file server for WHS and keep your HTPC and your WHS boxes separate.

 

[marcoi]

It used to be possible to use raw disks in VMware Server (versoin 1.x).
In fact, it is still possible even with version 2.x.
It is just that it is no longer officially supported.

Do you have any references on how to do still do it under 2.x ?

 

[Atherton213]

I updated the original post.

As for your point of running whs as host, you are then limited to 32bit OS and 3.5gb of memory. Then again if that is all the memory you have then its a mute point.

marcoi

ive got WHS on a machine with 4gb and it recognizes all 4gb

 

[fubar569]

ive got WHS on a machine with 4gb and it recognizes all 4gb

it might say and/or recognize that 4gb is installed...but as a 32bit OS it is incapable of addressing all 4gb of memory as noted in the thread...