Server setup with VMs for network

[ArchStud]

Hello,

I currently have the following setup:

MB - Supermirco X7DBE
CPU - 2 x Xeon L5420
RAM - 12 GB ECC
HD - 4 x WD Red 2TB
RAID - LSI 150 6 port raid (separate RAID card)

I would like to create a server and vm's that allow me to have an all in one solution for a print server, NAS box (using NASLite M2 x64), and possibly playing with various OS's to learn.

I tried ESXi... didn't like it, as well as Hyper-V Server 2012 R2, and have now settled on PROXMOX.

I was wondering if I need to setup the HD's on the separate RAID card as JBOD since they already have data on them from my previous NAS setup? I tried it in ESXi, but had an issue of not being able to write to the disks, only being able to read from them after creating disk images for ESXi to see them as RAW.

I was also thinking of playing with MS 2012 server to learn and for fun with Dynamics and Exchange to learn.

I do have experience with SBS2008 and AD.

Anyways, I enjoy looking forward to the dialogue my post will create and learning.

Thank you for any, and all help

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

Hi there Welcome to the community!

I guess it would depend on the OS itself and the way the drives have been set up. Do you have your main OS on them or do you have a separate drive (like a SSD) for that? What file format are you using on the drives?
I'd suggest to have a place where you can store backups of the data from those drives just in case something happens with the OS experiments and accidentally format the drives.

Captain_WD.

 

[XavierMace]

Virtualization platforms in general aren't really designed to use disks with existing data on them from some other system. The whole point in virtualization is to share your hardware resources so trying to RAW map drives is counter productive.

What exactly didn't you like about ESXI and HyperV?

 

[mv2devnull]

I tried ESXi... didn't like it, as well as Hyper-V Server 2012 R2, and have now settled on PROXMOX.

I have no experience with any of those. I do have CentOS Linux on the metal and manage KVM guests with its libvirt tools.


You have data on disks that "have been in a NAS"? The data is on filesystem(s).

If you want to keep using the data, then you have assemble the disks and the filesystem(s) the same way as they were in the NAS.
Frankly, it is easier to fill the server with new disks, set it up neatly, and then transfer data from the old NAS.

 

[yinan]

You really need to learn both of those products because they are incredibly powerful. If you take a bit to learn even the free version of ESXi you should really like its feature set.

 

[ArchStud]

Hi there Welcome to the community!

I guess it would depend on the OS itself and the way the drives have been set up. Do you have your main OS on them or do you have a separate drive (like a SSD) for that? What file format are you using on the drives?
I'd suggest to have a place where you can store backups of the data from those drives just in case something happens with the OS experiments and accidentally format the drives.

Captain_WD.

Thank you. The hard drives were initially set up using NasLite M2 x64 and are fairly simple which can be run from memory as the program itself is fairly small and efficient.

 

[ArchStud]

Virtualization platforms in general aren't really designed to use disks with existing data on them from some other system. The whole point in virtualization is to share your hardware resources so trying to RAW map drives is counter productive.

What exactly didn't you like about ESXI and HyperV?

Thank you. That I do understand, but what if I just want to share the hard disks with one VM and the existing data? As I mentioned earlier, I used NASLite M2 x64 originally for my NAS.

What I have done is create my first VM to run NASLite M2 x64 but I am unable to access those hard drives. In ESXi, I mapped the disks and was able to see them in the NASLite M2 x64 VM, read from them, but I was unable to write to them

ESXi wasn't a horrible experience except for that annoyance in obtaining and changing permissions for those raw disks.

Hyper-V... I absolutely hated not being able to load it to a USB thumb drive to do the installation. I followed steps in creating the USB drive, but it failed... and ate up two hours of my time. Upon installation via a DVD-R I did not find the setup intuitive (but that is due to my lack of experience).

 

[ArchStud]

I have no experience with any of those. I do have CentOS Linux on the metal and manage KVM guests with its libvirt tools.


You have data on disks that "have been in a NAS"? The data is on filesystem(s).

If you want to keep using the data, then you have assemble the disks and the filesystem(s) the same way as they were in the NAS.
Frankly, it is easier to fill the server with new disks, set it up neatly, and then transfer data from the old NAS.

Thank you. I understand that... I just wish it were easier to drop the disks in to the server, and have access to them physically and connect them to the VM I require them for. I setup the NASLite M2 x64 NAS, and NASLite has zero issues recognizing the hard drives if they are mapped (see previous reply where I had to map them in ESXi and then had Read permission, but no write permission).

I may give your suggestion a go if there is no solution.

 

[ArchStud]

You really need to learn both of those products because they are incredibly powerful. If you take a bit to learn even the free version of ESXi you should really like its feature set.

Thank you. I believe all three mentioned (ESXi, Hyper-V, and ProxMox) are all powerful. It is finding what works. I am willing to put the time in, but finding resources on ESXi and ProxMox are less likely than Hyper-V.

I am willing to put the time in, and sometimes the best way to learn anything is to poke, prod, and ask questions... especially after you break something

 

[XavierMace]

but finding resources on ESXi and ProxMox are less likely than Hyper-V.

LOLWUT? If you can't find resources on ESXi, you are doing something VERY wrong.

 

[mxnerd]

This?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XchoXCwpNGw

 

[Captain_WD]

Thank you. The hard drives were initially set up using NasLite M2 x64 and are fairly simple which can be run from memory as the program itself is fairly small and efficient.

As the guys pointed out, if you already have data on your drives and they are in a RAID array it would be rather tricky to get this volume to be recognized under another OS. I'd suggest to move the data onto another array with another file system that's dedicated to the OS you are using and have the old RAID array as a backup volume.

Captain_WD.

 

[yinan]

LOLWUT? If you can't find resources on ESXi, you are doing something VERY wrong.

Considering it is basically the defacto hypervisor for everything. Also, if you need any assistance fee free to ask me. But in general You should try to avoid using RDMs, they give you a bunch less fucntionality than VMDKs and there really isnt a performance gap anymore.

 

[sdifox]

Thank you. I believe all three mentioned (ESXi, Hyper-V, and ProxMox) are all powerful. It is finding what works. I am willing to put the time in, but finding resources on ESXi and ProxMox are less likely than Hyper-V.

I am willing to put the time in, and sometimes the best way to learn anything is to poke, prod, and ask questions... especially after you break something

Tons of resources on esxi and hyperv.
How many of the hdd did you dedicate to your nas?

 

[holden j caufield]

if you have esx and you already have drives with data, you can passthrough the controller attached to the drives to the vm. I didn't read the entire thing but the gist I got is this is what you wanted to do.

 

[sdifox]

if you have esx and you already have drives with data, you can passthrough the controller attached to the drives to the vm. I didn't read the entire thing but the gist I got is this is what you wanted to do.

I think all his hdds are in the nas set.

 

[holden j caufield]

Can the OP read any of the data from the NAS set through the native controller or attached to the LSI, or does your NAS have a USB or esata connector. If your board has vt-d or iommu you can passthrough any device or drives.

I've had in all in one esx box with a pfsense/sophos vm (passed through a multiport nic), a vm where I passed through the video card, the usb ports (for usb audio/usb keyboard mouse) so I had a actual working vm PC inside my hypervisor with KVM that I could interface with.

ESX is your best bet and pci passthrough gives you a lot of options. One of the vms was also a freenas vm. Also 12gb of ram seems a little low for your setup, can never have enough ram in vm host.

 

[nk215]

Can the OP read any of the data from the NAS set through the native controller or attached to the LSI, or does your NAS have a USB or esata connector. If your board has vt-d or iommu you can passthrough any device or drives.

I've had in all in one esx box with a pfsense/sophos vm (passed through a multiport nic), a vm where I passed through the video card, the usb ports (for usb audio/usb keyboard mouse) so I had a actual working vm PC inside my hypervisor with KVM that I could interface with.

ESX is your best bet and pci passthrough gives you a lot of options. One of the vms was also a freenas vm. Also 12gb of ram seems a little low for your setup, can never have enough ram in vm host.

This.

PCI passthrough is extremely powerful. To get a proper NAS on ESXi, you'll need a cheap IBM M1015 card in IT mode (or equivalent card).

I have 2 ESXi setups running for both NAS and dVGA (PCI passthrough of selected graphic cards). If I remote login one of the VMs, I get graphic accelerated via GPU. Even directX11 works fine via remote connection (Horizon Client).