Cheap storage solution for school lab

[zakya]

Hello there,

I've been reading here form some time now, and as I'm thinking of finally setting up some ESXi servers, I face the storage challenge.

For those who don't want to read the following, my question is : What is the best "cheap" yet reliable storage server out there ?

For the other, here is what I plan to do, and why I've some trouble choosing the right tool :

I can't really buy what I want, because we are a school laboratory, with as few support from our school's staff as it's possible.

Anyway, I still need to setup a lab environment able to handle some 30 development virtual machines, as a start.

The school provided us 3 HP DC7800 (yes, you begin to understand the problem ...) each loaded with 8GB RAM.

On each of these host I plan to install ESXi 4.0.

Now what I want to do is to be able to move "by hand" (as we can't aford vCenter/vMotion licences) some virtual machines form one host to another.

Therefor I will have to use shared storage (be it NFS or iSCSI), and here is the choice to make.

As our budget is very tight, i'm looking for a storage solution (will it be a server or a mockup of various parts we will then put up together) that can handle the load of my 3 ESXi servers and possibly some more in the futur. All of this for the smallest amount possible.

(As our school vendor is HP, if the solution provided is HP, it's even better)

By the way, I've read a lot on the NFS vs iSCSI, I was thinking of setting up an NFS environment (mostly because I'm more familar with it), is it a good choice ?

Hey, I know I ask a lot, but I'm really falling in love with ESXi, so bad that I can't wait to lay hand on some "serious" hardware to try it in production environment ...yeah, one day.

[weinstein5]

Welcoem to the Forums - the cheapest would be an open source solution like FreeNAS or OpenFiler - I have used both of these in lab scenarios with great success -

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[zakya]

Thanks for the quick reply!

In fact I was thinking of using one of these all-in-one operating system.

But my problem is that I can't install one of these on "nothing"

But as you've raised the point, if I go for NFS, what will be the best underlying filesystem to use ?

Given that I will be running around 30 VM form this server, and that, from time to time (during coding rushes) I will have 16 VM heavily using IO (constant install/uninstall process).

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Student & System administrator

[DSTAVERT]

Since we don't know your budget and it looks like you don't either it will be difficult. In my opinion NFS is a great choice since you can connect the same storage container to all of your ESXi hosts. All VMs will be visible to all hosts. Migrating from one host to another is a mater of pausing in one host and unpausing on another (adding to inventory on the second of course).

The platform for storage will obviously whatever you can get. More smaller disks in an array are usually better than fewer larger disks.

[zakya]

You're right, I don't know my budget myself, but what I do know (or can estimate) is what I will be able to defend facing our administration.

I'm sorry, I should have mention that in my first post.

I'm looking for a solution at a maximum of 4.000$ for (another thing I sould have mentionned) a total usable storage space of 1.5TB at a minimum.

Sorry for the lack of information in my first post, and thanks for the NFS answer, I think I will go that way ... but the question about the underlying filesystem remain open.

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Student & System administrator

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

Have a look at HP's DL185. G5s use 3.5 disks up to 12. G6's use 2.5 and I think you can go to 24 disks. Have a look at Open-e.com. They have a free version with a capacity up to 2TB.

[zakya]

Thanks for the DL 185, I must have somehow missed it.

I think I will go and try convince my school to buy us one for our Lab.

A DL185 loaded with 10 to 12 250Go SATA drive fill fully fit our needs.

I've downloaded and tested Open-E DSS v6 Lite, but I don't like their web interface...

Next step, find the best underlying filesystem for this soon-to-be live NAS server.

Thank you for your helpful answers!

Student & System administrator

[DSTAVERT]

NFS doesn't require much configuration, in fact almost nothing. An exports file for nfs is a single line. Have a look at webmin. It can run on top of most linux / unix OS's.

[zakya]

Yeah I know that, but still NFS need to export a pre-formated filesystem, you can't just export the raw drives then format it in VMFS like you will with iSCSI/FC.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that the filesystem you choose to format your disk before exporting this disk through NFS may impact your performances.

Or maybe I'm wrong and don't really understand the ins and outs of NFS.

As for the configuration of NFS, we use some here, and I know I can work something out real quick, by default I will go for something like ext3 but as I'm not a filesystem expert, maybe there's something better

Student & System administrator

[DSTAVERT]

I use NFS heavily. I just use a cut down Centos install with ext3 and just export my storage. Although I haven't spend any real time looking at ZFS but it looks interesting.

[srinivasvivek]

I would try Iomega ix2 NAS. It's VMware certified and you can pick up 1 TB box for 170-200$ from buy.com or dell home / SMB. NFS is really easy to manage too