VMware Cloud Community
maxyardley
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Sharing local datastore between multiple hosts?

I have a 2 host setup going and I would like to share the local datastores on one to the other. Is this possible with only a 2 host configuration? The reason for doing this is that I would like the second host to run a diskless setup and still be able to utilize the storage I have available on the other. This would be done via a 10g link between the two. I have seen a few older posts about this and many provide vSAN as the solution but i am still confused whether or not this can be accomplished given the hardware I currently have.

Thanks!

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

No, this isn't a possibility with ESXi, nor is vSAN likely an option for you unless you meet the hardware requirements. This is also not a very good idea as obviously failure of that disk means failure of everything. It's far better to externalize this storage using even a cheap NAS. There are many options on the market that would put you in a far better position and allows it to be easily shared between both hosts.

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
3 Replies
daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

No, this isn't a possibility with ESXi, nor is vSAN likely an option for you unless you meet the hardware requirements. This is also not a very good idea as obviously failure of that disk means failure of everything. It's far better to externalize this storage using even a cheap NAS. There are many options on the market that would put you in a far better position and allows it to be easily shared between both hosts.

Reply
0 Kudos
maxyardley
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Thank you for the reply. I do have a NAS however I will only be able to get 1gig speeds via iSCSI with the current setup. I'm assuming this will not be ideal given that this doesn't provide much overhead.

Reply
0 Kudos
daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

It depends which you value more: lower performance or higher availability. Do you care if these workloads get blown up? If yes, availability sounds like the better option.

Reply
0 Kudos