Will Microsoft iscsi work with ESX3i or vSphere? any idea?

[vmkarthik]

I wana try a test environment and planning to convert a windows machine as an iscsi target for my ESX host

Will microsoft iscsi will be useful?will it work?

I have tried with starwind but the trial period is very short to make use of the features.

or is there any free iscsi s/w available to convert windows system as a Datastore?

Any help?

Thanks

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Yes it will work but Starwind is the best out there at the moment. The other alternative is to use NFS but that is generally very slow.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, Virtualization Practice Analyst[/url]
Now Available: 'VMware vSphere(TM) and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing the Virtual Environment'[/url]
Also available 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise'[/url]
[url=http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Blog_Roll]SearchVMware Pro[/url]|Blue Gears[/url]|Top Virtualization Security Links[/url]|Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast[/url]

[vmkarthik]

Are you sure that i will be able to convert windows system into iscsi target with MS software?

some articles that i read said it cant ....thats why...

[DSTAVERT]

Which Microsoft product are you talking about. The iSCS service built in to Server 2008 and 2003 R2 is an iSCS initiator and you want a target. Microsoft does have a Storage Server software but that is only available to OEMs.

There are other iSCSI implementations. Most of them either run on other OS's or are packaged with an OS.

Depending on how much storage you need there are freely available ones.

Freenas

Openfiler

Open-e

[Texiwill]

Hello,

There are other iSCSI targets for windows besides Starwind, I just do not know them and have only tried Starwind. In general, I do not like WIndows as a High Performance iSCSI server.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, Virtualization Practice Analyst[/url]
Now Available: 'VMware vSphere(TM) and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing the Virtual Environment'[/url]
Also available 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise'[/url]
[url=http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Blog_Roll]SearchVMware Pro[/url]|Blue Gears[/url]|Top Virtualization Security Links[/url]|Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast[/url]

[vmkarthik]

Hi Guys,

I got the ans after an extensive search that the one microsoft has is just an initiator but a target is the one that is required which is available only with starwind or starport etc...

Also a opensource iscsi target is available to convert a linux machine to iscsi...

[91gsixty]

Microsoft iscsi 3.1 target works with esx 3.5/i and esx 4 but not esx4i, not sure why.

This target is part of the WSS windows storage server.