Hi
My business is looking to implement ESX on 3 of our core servers to consolidate our server functions and for Disaster Recovery. Were looking at Infrastructure 3i Starter/Foundation.
However the main sticking point were getting is the storage solution. Starter will only run from NAS / DAS so this limits our options slightly (plus the cost of a SAN would take the project well overboard)
Does anyone have any ideas or recommendations for using NAS to host VM's? Were already thinking of using 2 NAS one for VM's the other for storage. But any ideas would be great and any recommended models would be appreciated.
Many Thanks.
Kane
I don't believe you HAVE to have SAN storage for any version of ESX. I know that when I tested 3i, I only had local storage to test on.
I don't believe you HAVE to have SAN storage for any version of ESX. I know that when I tested 3i, I only had local storage to test on.
Ok but does 3i starter/foundation allow you to store / run the VMs from a NAS? and if so what should i be looking for in a NAS?
Thanks
One option you could look at is if you go for standard/enterprise, is to use the VSA from Lefthand Networks, this is a VM based appliance which takes your spare local disk capacity and presents the aggreate to the ESX servers as a iSCSI target, You can find further infomation here. this is a much cheaper option than buying a dedicated SAN, also there is a migration path to thier enterprise level products as well,
PS - I do not have any affilicaiton with the above company ![]()
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Kind Regards
Tom,
One option you could look at is if you go for standard/enterprise, is to use the VSA from Lefthand Networks, this is a VM based appliance which takes your spare local disk capacity and presents the aggreate to the ESX servers as a iSCSI target, You can find further infomation here. this is a much cheaper option than buying a dedicated SAN, also there is a migration path to thier enterprise level products as well,
Tom
I noticed this in another post that you wrote on another discussion. The only issue i have with this as it wouldn't help in regard to disaster recovery as a NAS or SAN would.
It looks like a good product though just not what i might need. I'm mainly wondering who might have used a NAS and if so what should i look for? block level access? high transfer speeds etc?
Cheers
Kane
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Kane,
I use ESX with direct attached storage as I could not justify the cost of a SAN at this point. When I do get a SAN, I will only purchase one with redundant controllers, power supplies, etc. I have two identical ESX boxes, one production and one development and use esXpress to backup the VMs to an OpenFiler box. I then copy the backups from the OpenFiler box to a portable hard drive for DR purposes.
In the event the production ESX box goes down, I can restore to the development box very quickly. Although I've not suffered a real failure of the production box, testing the recovery process has worked very well.
-Jeff
I understand that Starter supports NFS, so you could build a NAS with that. No iSCSI or FC though. I will be attempting the NFS solution (to store CD images for now) as soon as we get the server we ordered. Good luck!
I understand that Starter supports NFS, so you could build a NAS with that. No iSCSI or FC though. I will be attempting the NFS solution (to store CD images for now) as soon as we get the server we ordered. Good luck!
I thought that the foundation level entry for ESX does now support iSCSI? (sorry for the confusion here between starter and foundation i've only just started looking at the new offerings from VMWare)
Thanks for the feedback so far, its greatly appreciated. Whatabout using a NAS capible of block level entry?(NAS - iSCSI compatible) that way i get some of the benifits of a SAN but without the price tag.
I have been looking at NAS with iSCSI capabilities and this gave me some pause for thought Adaptec Snap Server 110 - NAS - 500 GB - HD 500 GB x 1 - Gigabit Ethernet - iSCSI
I will also give the other products a look and see if these would be better or not.
We are looking to virtualise most of our existing infrastructure (currently 5 physical machines) into 3 ESX Servers but will need to host 9 at least. This is why i'm looking at seperate storage in-case of a physical failiure.
Kane
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What you do here is buy two VSA's one for each node, they then replicate to each other and therefore you get your resliance
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Kind Regards
Tom,
I have been looking at NAS with iSCSI capabilities and this gave me some pause for thought Adaptec Snap Server 110 - NAS - 500 GB - HD 500 GB x 1 - Gigabit Ethernet - iSCSI
I will also give the other products a look and see if these would be better or not.
Before you buy one of these, make sure it works with VMware. I've been looking for a cheap NAS solution for our lab. I've purchased a few NAS devices that support NFS but, Vmware is very specific about which version of NFS it has to be.
What you do here is buy two VSA's one for each node, they then replicate to each other and therefore you get your resliance
Sorry whats a VSA?
Kane
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VSA Virtual Storage Appliance see this Link for further info
Kind Regards
Tom,
Take a look at Netapp S300 or S500 for ESX starter and NFS use. Starts at $3K for 1TB.
Here is a more information on using NFS and Netapp for VMware datastores: Why VMware over Netapp NFS
-
dlp
I have been looking at NAS with iSCSI capabilities and this gave me some pause for thought Adaptec Snap Server 110 - NAS - 500 GB - HD 500 GB x 1 - Gigabit Ethernet - iSCSI
I will also give the other products a look and see if these would be better or not.
Before you buy one of these, make sure it works with VMware. I've been looking for a cheap NAS solution for our lab. I've purchased a few NAS devices that support NFS but, Vmware is very specific about which version of NFS it has to be.Any idea of the type of NFS that this needs to be? or is the answer contained in one of the compatibility pdfs? (answered: NFS v3/v4)
Kane
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Message was edited by: divine_kane (answering his own Question)
Hi Everyone
I thought i'd give everyone some feedback now with what i have found out, which i hope will work for my business as well as other SMBs out there.
Firstly one of the products i have been looking at the Adaptec - Snapserver 110 does have support for NFS v3, which is needed for ESX 3.0. and at £600 for 500GB would be a good deal for NAS storage for storing VM's BUT it does not have ideal redundancy as it only has 1 HDD and no backup power adaptors. Also we would require 2 of these (1 for VM's & 1 for Data).
The other product i have started to look at is the Storevault S300 which for $3000 dollers is a bit of a step up (i'm hoping it is less for GBP) but offers great features such as full ESX iSCSI support, up to 4TB of data storage, etc. As well as being specifically designed for this. If the price for this in GBP is around the £1500 mark i would go for this option instead.
As for VSA, i did look at this product, but doesnt seem to provide the redundancy that i need and also uses a software iSCSI initiator which would put more load on the CPU than needed. The servers i will be running this on are not big servers anyway (HP Proliant ML150's G3) so i don't want to take the chance.
However the only true way to see what works best will be to try some of the solutions and see what works well with our diverse infrastructure. Which i am going to do and let everyone know the results.
This process has been longer and harder than i thought and without these forums i would have been pretty stuck so a BIG THANK YOU to all of you who helped!
The only other thing i feel i need to mention is to VMWare. I think they really need to start testing and certifying server / storage hardware that SMB's will be looking to buy and use. Alot of the hardware that i can see on the compatibility pdfs are lets face it tested for use for Enterprise sized companies and budgets. As it is pretty much all of the hardware that i will be using is only going to be covered by the 'Third-party hardware ' clause of the support, which for SMB's without high end IT experts for refer to is just going to make things harder for us.
All this said VMWare is still a brilliant company with a great set of products for business virtualisation. These forums are always healthy and help is easily availiable. All that i have mentioned above can be sorted out and i am sure will be in due course.
Kane
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It MUST be NFS v3
It MUST be NFS v3
It's version 3.x. I can't find it in any documentation but, it does come up in the error message in Virtual Center if you try to connect to the wrong version NFS. We have a cheap NAS device that's NFS version 3 and it didn't work.
It MUST be NFS v3
Many thanks, i've changed my post accordingly
Kane
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Don't get too hung up on using an iSCSI software initiator. At Vmworld they showed some cases where the software initiator performed better than the hardware initiator. Vmware's reccomendation:
Software Initiator:
- No noticable impact if CPU cycles are available
- Less noticeable impact if load is light to moderate
Hardware initiator recommended when:
- ESX host operating at high CPU load
- Modrate / Heavy iSCSI traffic
The bottom line is, if you are maxing out the CPU on your host, you are WAY past maxing out the RAM. If you don't have CPU cycles available for the iSCSI initiator, you've got bigger issues than SAN storage. I've been working with a third party that does iSCSI implentations with Vmware. They have not had a client yet that has needed a hardware initiator.
