I'm interested in setting up a home virtualization server.
The server will be used for learning about virtualization,
various OSs (Win/Linux) and for programming/graphics.
I'm new to virtualization and would appreciate a pointer to proceed with
a reasonable installation.
I have the following hardware (server is for vmware):
- TS140 server , XEON e3-1246-v3 , 2*1TB HDD, 1*256GB SSD, 20GB memory,
1 single Intel nic, 1 quad Intel nic.
- 1TB WD NAS
- A few old pcs eg pentium 3, 4, core 2 duo laptop
-beaglebone
My long term plan is to have separate external storage for backup + the NAS,
but now I planned to use one of the 1TB drives in the server for backup + NAS.
(if this is not a good idea, would like suggestion).
How would I best utilise the other 1TB HDD and 256GB SSD for vmware(partitioning/use) ?
I will be running vSphere from USB stick - as have seen on many posts by others.
As I will be interested to try out other virtualization products, how can that be done best
using the one server (partitioning / data storage/use) ?
One of the older labs I built had external storage by way of Openfiler. I presented storage from Openfiler to my ESXi host via iSCSI. This was a single ESXi host and a separate desktop for storage. In order to consolidate (+ do more stuff) I took my ESXi host and created a nested lab. This allowed me to have nested ESXi hosts within my physical host, as well as install Openfiler as a VM to present storage to the nested hosts. I installed my nested hosts on SSD, and used my regular 2TB HDD to present storage to the hosts via Openfiler. This allowed me to do much more within my lab. Just some ideas.
This is for a home lab / I don't have much more budget especially not for software.
I understood the first part of your post about the use of desktop/openfiler as storage. Unfortunately
looks like I just came out of the stone age as the other desktops I have are all old IDE P4s and P3s
(so this is not an option).
The second part about nested Esxi / Openfiler VM I don't quite understand.
Pardon my ignorance - what is the difference in using Openfiler VM in a nested Esxi
and Openfiler VM directly on top of Esxi as far as configuring/using the storage ?
I presume the SSD would be used for running VMs and the 2 *1TB would be used for
the datastore ?
At the moment I'm in a non-virtualized IT environment with the small 1TB WD NAS
holding images of installations, documents etc. Will this NAS be able to be used
further and how should I use the two 1TB HDDs in the server (does it make sense
to do without RAID and use one of the 1TB for storage and the other for backup?
Excuse the stupid questions but I would like a plan on how to use the server
and right now I'm lost.
I've been doing more digging and although I'm afraid that it's diving in the bottomless
deep end for me, I would like to try using an Omnios VM and Esxi and doing all storage onboard
the server.
My feeling is that it would be safer to separate the storage on a NAS due to my present
level of expperience but that would mean more hardware - so what the heck, I'll try it.
Now that I've gotten more specific, could someone indicate:
(a)Is it smart to do it all in one (have no idea what could possibly happen to the storage
if VM/Esxi crash etc. - which they most probably will with my experience
) ?
(b)Should I get a raid controller or use software raid (RDM)?
(c)How to use/partition the disks SSD, 2 HDDs / do I need more disks ?
(d)I have the 1TB WD NAS -can I use it to help me save things because there could be a lot
of stuff ups and will need a "safe" /separate place where I can recover from
?
To give more details regarding usage and storage needs:
for a start, I would not be running more than 1 or 2 VMs at the same time on top of
the Esxi + Omnios VM (XP, Win7, Win10, Linux, Win server)
The 1TB WD NAS is half full but there are a lot of Acronis images which I will delete.
Should I spend more money on storage (internal or external) to ensure I have safe
data for restoring VMs / files ?
I would take a look at this link: http://professionalvmware.com/2012/05/vsphere-5-autolab/
It sounds like you are starting fresh with virtualization, so this would be an excellent starting point. Basically, this will be a fully automated build of a vSphere environment.
OK thanks, will look into it - I've got the i350-t4 and IBM1015 cards, so ready
to start - will probably have a lot of questions ![]()
Nice! Fill free to ask questions!
