NAS hardware for ESXi 5.1 lab?

[cshells]

I am looking to build a NAS for my lab at home. I was thinking about putting ESXi on a home built NAS and using the EMC VNX storage appliance. If I wanted I could also maybe throw vCenter and AD on this box too. I was hoping to get decent enough performance to play and test different VMware products, vCloud, View, etc. I was curious what others are using for hardware on their home built NAS? Also, I think I read the VNX appliance only does NFS, is this true?

[dales123]

Starwind free I find is pretty good for whiteboxing Iscsi targets. Another popular one is Openfiler however I have not used that for a few years as I've got an old iomega ix2 that I use for NFS storage. AFAIK if you mean uberVNX I;m pretty sure its NFS only.

If you are going to build a whitebox pc to lab the entire thing (ESXi, storage, networking etc) then any box will do and use VMware workstation to build it all in. Just make sure you get as much memory as possible 16GB is good or Intels upto 32GB is better. Also get 3 different disk drives, I would get a standard 320 or similar OS drive to install windows directly onto the whitebox then install workstation on that. Then a larger disk for slow storage for vm's where performance does not matter quite so much and then a SSD (the most capacity you can afford) to put the vm's you are actively working on on. Labbing things out on sata disks soon becomes tedious when you have a handful of vm's running from it.

[cshells]

Thanks for the reply. Ya I have used Openfiler, it isn't bad, I just wanted to use something else. Plus we are a heavy EMC shop so working in Unishpere is nice.

Actually I am not looking to build an entire lab. I already have two 32GB ESXi hosts. I have been using openfiler as a VM on one of my hosts to share out storage and I decided I want a dedicated box for all my shared storage instead. I will probably use uberVNX or NexentaStor. I was just curious what other labbers were using for their home built NAS.

[Dthompson04]

cshells,

  Could you send me a parts list of what is working for you?  I've been researching equipment to buy for a VCP 5.1 lab for esxi and now have the funds to start buying parts.

  Since the Intel processors are more expensive I was hoping to use the 8 core AMD processors to get more bang for my $$$'s  Are you using Intel or AMD processors?

[cshells]

I actually followed the build of a website I found. It has been working pretty well for me so far.

http://www.jasemccarty.com/blog/?p=2263

I am not using any AMD in my lab currently. I actually am using a Intel G620 in both those servers. In my lab environment the CPU never get strained that much, so I put more of my money towards RAM and SSDs. You will use way more RAM and having SSDs helps out a lot more than getting a high end CPU. The only reason I would get a higher end CPU is for the VT-D functionality. I have a 3rd server that I built out to be dedicated strictly to shared storage. I would have to check my hardware list to see what all I used to build it out, but I put ESXi 5.1 on it then use OpenFiler and the VNX appliance for my storage needs.

[BenLiebowitz]

Veeam AutoLab comes with a FreeNAS VM that I've been pretty happy with. 

http://www.labguides.com/autolab/

[ldesfontaines]

I just built a shared storage using "OpenFiler". A pretty easy to use appliance, able to do "iSCSI" and do not consume many ressources.

http://www.openfiler.com

[Dthompson04]

  I can see what you mean on high end and it could put you into the $1000 range just for the CPU, but if you look below there are four AMD 8-core processors that can provide more for the dollar.  Even the FX-8320 at $169.99 puts a lot of power for less than an INTEL chip.

  I am still considering both processors, but the main point will be finding a motherboard that is mostly compatible.  I've read that many boards have issues with the on board Storage, NIC and other driver compatibility.

AMD
FX-8350 AM3+ $199.99
FX 8350 8 Cores, 4.0/ 4.2 GHz, L2/L3 Cache 8MB/8MB
FX-8150 AM3+ $189.99
FX 8150 8 Cores, 3.6/ 4.2 GHz, L2/L3 Cache 8MB/8MB
FX-8320 AM3+ $169.99
FX 8320 8 Cores, 3.5/ 4.0 GHz, L2/L3 Cache 8MB/8MB
FX-8120 AM3+ $149.99
FX 8350 8 Cores, 3.1/ 3.4 GHz, L2/L3 Cache 8MB/8MB

INTEL

Intel Core i7 2700K Boxed Processor 2nd Generation Sandy Bridge CPU
i7-2700K 4 Cores, 3.5/ 3.9 GHz, 8MB Intel Smart cache
$195.00

[mrlesmithjr]

Have a read at the link provided below. I have used most of the different NAS solutions available for my home lab. I use the community edition of Nexentastor and have been very happy with it for years. I recently just built a new NAS which is included in the link as well to show a little breakdown of the components that I used.

http://everythingshouldbevirtual.com/category/storage/nexenta-storage