I have read this defeats the purpose because of the errors that windows 8 can cause but I still would like to set up my discs in a zfs raid running from a vmware inside of windows 8. Ive been searching but have not had any luck finding guides on how to set this up. If anyone can help or point me in the right direction that would be awesome!
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zfs running from vmware in win8
- Thread starter yodamalk
- Start date
Considering your virtual disks will just be files on the host's unsafe file system, there is absolutely zero point in doing this beyond intellectual experimentation.
But to answer your question, yes you could run Solaris in a VM with 3 virtual disks in RaidZ.
But to answer your question, yes you could run Solaris in a VM with 3 virtual disks in RaidZ.
So what would you guys recommend? running solaris and then running win8 in a virtual system? any way to set up a dual boot. what would you guys set up to allow for me to use the gaming aspect of my system and at the same time have a decent software RAID setup
for reference my system is:
[PCPartPicker part list](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ng2n) / [Price breakdown by merchant](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ng2n/by_merchant/) / [Benchmarks](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ng2n/benchmarks/)
Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
**CPU** | [AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/amd-cpu-fd6300wmhkbox) |
**Motherboard** | [ASRock 970DE3/U3S3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-970de3u3s3) |
**Memory** | [G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f310666cl9d8gbxl) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
STORAGE SSD 256 GB Toshiba
**Video Card** | [Asus GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-video-card-gtx660dc2o2gd5) |
**Case** | [Rosewill ARMOR-EVO ATX Full Tower Case](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/rosewill-case-armorevo) |
**Power Supply** | [Antec Basiq Plus 550W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/antec-power-supply-bp550plus) |
for reference my system is:
[PCPartPicker part list](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ng2n) / [Price breakdown by merchant](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ng2n/by_merchant/) / [Benchmarks](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ng2n/benchmarks/)
Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
**CPU** | [AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/amd-cpu-fd6300wmhkbox) |
**Motherboard** | [ASRock 970DE3/U3S3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-970de3u3s3) |
**Memory** | [G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f310666cl9d8gbxl) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
**Storage** | [Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd30efrx) |
STORAGE SSD 256 GB Toshiba
**Video Card** | [Asus GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-video-card-gtx660dc2o2gd5) |
**Case** | [Rosewill ARMOR-EVO ATX Full Tower Case](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/rosewill-case-armorevo) |
**Power Supply** | [Antec Basiq Plus 550W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/antec-power-supply-bp550plus) |
When you say vmware+windows+other OS, people here will answer : all in one. A server running ESXi, with any number of virtual windows, solaris, linux you may need. For the ZFS part, the disks are passed through to solaris/openindiana so it's safe and no different from a bare metal install.
leeleatherwood
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2011
- Messages
- 1,582
You could try this:
Server 2012 with HyperV Role installed. You can game directly from this OS with no performance loss or worrying about virtualization. (Games will be running on the "Bare Metal" OS)
Pass through the disks to a VM running Solaris/FreeNAS for your ZFS array.
If you truly want to do what you are proposing to do, this would be the best solution, but its still rather silly and you should just spend a little bit more money and build a dedicated system for the storage.
Server 2012 with HyperV Role installed. You can game directly from this OS with no performance loss or worrying about virtualization. (Games will be running on the "Bare Metal" OS)
Pass through the disks to a VM running Solaris/FreeNAS for your ZFS array.
If you truly want to do what you are proposing to do, this would be the best solution, but its still rather silly and you should just spend a little bit more money and build a dedicated system for the storage.
brutalizer
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2010
- Messages
- 1,603
There was a thread about someone who used Windows, and installed virtualbox. Then he virtualized Solaris and connected some SATA disks. From the Solaris VM, he accessed the raw SATA disks and created a ZFS raid. All worked fine until he lost all his data. The reason? VirtualBox added another layer to ZFS and reported that some disk operation was done, when in fact, the disk operation had been cached by VirtualBox and not done yet by ZFS. But Solaris got a report from VirtualBox that the operation was done, so Solaris continued with what he was doing (maybe shutting down the PC) or something, and he lost all his data. Because Solaris was tricked by VirtualBox. VMware is just like VirtualBox. Dont do this.
I do like this to give Windows access to ZFS raid:
I have installed Solaris on bare metal on a SSD disk. From Solaris I access raw SATA disks and run a ZFS raid. I have also installed Virtualbox and virtualized Windows XP. So, I boot up Solaris, and then I boot up my WindowsXP virtual machine. I run WindowsXP most of the time, making it full screen. Solaris is running in the background and gives WinXP access to the ZFS raid via Microsoft CIFS. I can play older FPS games via WinXP/VirtualBox, such as Quake3, etc. Newer games will not work in VirtualBox.
When I want to game seriously new games, I shut down the server. And connect a USB3 SATA disk where I have installed Windows7 bare metal. So upon boot I choose via BIOS, to boot up USB3 Windows7, and there I can play all the latest games. But actually, I dont run USB3, instead I run eSATA disk. My PC doesnt have USB3, so I have a eSATA connection instead. eSATA is faster than USB3, BTW. Thus, I have Win7 only to play games on, I do no work in Win7. I always work in WinXP, ontop Solaris. To transfer files from ZFS raid to Windows7, I reboot into Solaris, and via WindowsXP, I can access the Windows7 disk, so I can copy files from WinXP to Win7.
To summarize:
-Solaris bare metal on SSD, and installed VirtualBox
-Virtualized WindowsXP which can access the ZFS raid
-I do all work in WinXP and file handling, copying movies, etc, and can play simpler older Win games
-I have an Win7 SATA disk exclusively for gaming, and do nothing else
-I am considering installing Windows7 to another SATA disk exclusively for making music, cubase, pro tools, etc.
So, depending on what I want to do, I boot into different disks. Heavy graphics such as gaming needs its own SATA disk. Everything else which is not graphics heavy, I can do virtualized: programming, MS Word/Excel, etc.
This way, I dont need to create a dedicated server. Instead I have dedicated disks. Why dedicate a whole server, when you just need to dedicate disks? I never use two computers at the same time, I always do one task: gaming, programming, creating music, etc. Therefore I can just switch disks and reboot. No need for different PCs.
EDIT: Be careful with running operating systems from USB disks, they might cause trouble. It seems that eSATA is preferable, because it is true SATA.
I do like this to give Windows access to ZFS raid:
I have installed Solaris on bare metal on a SSD disk. From Solaris I access raw SATA disks and run a ZFS raid. I have also installed Virtualbox and virtualized Windows XP. So, I boot up Solaris, and then I boot up my WindowsXP virtual machine. I run WindowsXP most of the time, making it full screen. Solaris is running in the background and gives WinXP access to the ZFS raid via Microsoft CIFS. I can play older FPS games via WinXP/VirtualBox, such as Quake3, etc. Newer games will not work in VirtualBox.
When I want to game seriously new games, I shut down the server. And connect a USB3 SATA disk where I have installed Windows7 bare metal. So upon boot I choose via BIOS, to boot up USB3 Windows7, and there I can play all the latest games. But actually, I dont run USB3, instead I run eSATA disk. My PC doesnt have USB3, so I have a eSATA connection instead. eSATA is faster than USB3, BTW. Thus, I have Win7 only to play games on, I do no work in Win7. I always work in WinXP, ontop Solaris. To transfer files from ZFS raid to Windows7, I reboot into Solaris, and via WindowsXP, I can access the Windows7 disk, so I can copy files from WinXP to Win7.
To summarize:
-Solaris bare metal on SSD, and installed VirtualBox
-Virtualized WindowsXP which can access the ZFS raid
-I do all work in WinXP and file handling, copying movies, etc, and can play simpler older Win games
-I have an Win7 SATA disk exclusively for gaming, and do nothing else
-I am considering installing Windows7 to another SATA disk exclusively for making music, cubase, pro tools, etc.
So, depending on what I want to do, I boot into different disks. Heavy graphics such as gaming needs its own SATA disk. Everything else which is not graphics heavy, I can do virtualized: programming, MS Word/Excel, etc.
This way, I dont need to create a dedicated server. Instead I have dedicated disks. Why dedicate a whole server, when you just need to dedicate disks? I never use two computers at the same time, I always do one task: gaming, programming, creating music, etc. Therefore I can just switch disks and reboot. No need for different PCs.
EDIT: Be careful with running operating systems from USB disks, they might cause trouble. It seems that eSATA is preferable, because it is true SATA.
Last edited:
brutalizer
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2010
- Messages
- 1,603
Glad to help, I have got lots of help from this forum. Many helpful people here, really great forum! But unfortunately, some of them (like "Odditory") thinks you are a moron for asking newbie questions, but hey, werent we all beginners at some time in life? Why mock newbies? It is more productive to help than spreading negative vibrations?
I use this setup and it works great. It is a bit of a hassle, though, need to reboot into different disks. But if you can stand that, you dont need separate computers, only separate disks. If you have further questions on this, please ask. I have omitted some details, that might be tricky, for instance, how to access the Win7 disk from a virtualized WinXP VM? That is tricky, but I know how to do it now. I can post all commands for you, when you get there. Or, instead of accessing Win7 from WinXP (to copy files from ZFS raid to Windows), you could copy all files to USB formatted with FAT32. Or, copy to another PC, if you have one on your network.
I use this setup and it works great. It is a bit of a hassle, though, need to reboot into different disks. But if you can stand that, you dont need separate computers, only separate disks. If you have further questions on this, please ask. I have omitted some details, that might be tricky, for instance, how to access the Win7 disk from a virtualized WinXP VM? That is tricky, but I know how to do it now. I can post all commands for you, when you get there. Or, instead of accessing Win7 from WinXP (to copy files from ZFS raid to Windows), you could copy all files to USB formatted with FAT32. Or, copy to another PC, if you have one on your network.