windows 2012 continuous availability nfs server a viably option?

[Chiel]

Hi everyone,

I have 2 exisiting servers (64Gb with 2x10Gbe ports) with a sas disk cabinet with 48 disks (some SSD's and some normal drives)

My initial thought was to use a Windows 2012 R2 failover cluster with a continous availability nfs server.

Use storages space with mixed ssd's and normal disk in mirror mode for performance (storage tiers).

The storage will be used by a 3 node esxi 5.1 cluster.

Is this a viable options for storage? Or should  looking at software solutions like starwind? Problem is that there is (like normal) no money or very little budget for a real storage solution. And since the server are already in place they wanna use those.

Is Windows 2012R2 as storage backend even a supported solution?

Any pointers you guys can give me are grealty appriciated!

Kind regards,

Michiel

[AnatolyVilchins]

Hi!

Thank you for considering StarWind product. With StarWind you have two options:

1. The scenario that you`ve mentioned, when StarWind is installed on the WS hardware boxes. If the budget is the problem here you can install StarWind on the free Hyper-V Server. Also StarWind sales guys do can be flexible when talking about price
2. You can wait for the VSA of StarWind that is already available in the Beta of v8.

PM or email me if you`ll decide to go with StarWind and I`ll gladly assist you.

Obviously you do can create share storage with VMware for your vSphere infrastructure, but in my opinion it is better idea to have solution from VMware for it. Here is the pretty good article with comparing those solutions:

VMware or Microsoft? Comparing vSphere 5.5 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V At-A-Glance - KeithMa...

If you`ll still decide to go with the presenting Windows based scenario those links will be useful for you (they are pretty old but should still work for you)::

How to Enable NFS on Windows 2008 and Present to ESX | VMware Support Insider - VMware Blogs

NFS in windows server 2012 to ESX 5.1 | Peter's ruminations

Each soution has it pros and cons but in my opinion it would be better to go with some VSA or other solution that`d functioned directly from the ESX hosts, thus giving you the benefit of DAS speed.