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UnRAID on VMWare ESXi with Raw Device Mapping
ftp222:
--- Quote from: drealit on September 28, 2010, 08:44:15 AM ---Would you mind plopping down the hardware you're using for you builds? I'm very interested in pursuing a new build similar to this in the future once this receives a bit more testing. I got rid of my Windows 08 server but have been missing it dearly... came down to money and energy usage. I've always dreamed of having my unRaid server be multi-purpose but normal vmware just wouldn't work for my needs (power limitations).
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I have 2 unRAID systems at home - The main production system has a Q9400 (quad core) processor and 6GB of memory. I currently run VMware Server 2.0.2 (software) and 2 Windows XP VM's on the system without any issues. The main limitation I ran into for speed with this system was the slow hard drive I was using to store the VM's. I've recently switched to an SSD and it is absolutely flying now. To be honest, I could do everything with a dual core CPU, the quad is overkill and not needed.
My 2nd system is my backup system of production and also used for testing (both new software and hardware). It is a Pentium D (dual core - very old) with just 1 GB of memory. The plan is to put ESXi on it and map the existing SATA drives to an unRAID VM to see if everything works and is fully functional without any errors. unRAID only requires 512 MB of memory and XP can run off of 256-512 without too many issues, so it should work for testing.
With ESXi, you MUST have a 64-bit capable processor and I would recommend at least 2 GB of memory and a reasonably fast hard drive to store the VM's. Once you start running on the bare metal hypervisor versus the software one, thing speed up considerably and opens many more options.
I hope others are testing this and report back their findings. It sounds like everyone has the same desire to eliminate systems that are wasting energy and lower costs. I have this vision of a NAS box being able to perform several functions and it seems like unRAID in conjunction with VMware is the closest to accomplishing it at this time. Of course if Windows Home Server had a better form of data protection (ala unraid) instead of just mirroring, then it's a whole new ballgame.
Hazer:
That's kinda what I'm aiming for in general. My dev box died and I've replaced it with a quad core that's completely overpowered for what I was doing. Collapsing the unRAID system into it would also allow me to get rid of excess traffic on my network as I can migrate my torrent client into a VM on the same system.
When you do your testing are you planning on modifying the VM Memory size to see if there's a "sweet spot" for caching? I've got 4gb on the system now, it will hold up to 16 and I wouldn't object to performing RAM upgrades down the road if there is benefit to be gained from something larger than 1 or 2gb.
And of course the big question I run into is: I'm thinking about scrapping the whole system and drive array that my unRAID server is running on (2x 1.5 TB, a 1 TB, 2x .75TB and a .5TB) and grabbing a pack of new 2TB drives to build on. Problem is, I only have the one license for unRAID. ;) If I make a new VM with a new disk pack, how do I get the data over given that there is only "one server"...
drealit:
By the way for those that don't already know about this site (although it's already pretty well known lol): http://www.vm-help.com/ . Very good material there regarding ESXi what I was most interested in was the White Box hardware list - http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/esx40_whitebox_HCL.php . I'd rather not spend $1500 on uber components if I don't have to :).
ftp222:
Well the test with my backup server didn't go quite so well. After numerous issues with a CPU upgrade, I found out VMware ESXi requires 2 GB of memory - my backup system only has 1 GB. So, this project is on hold until I can scrounge up so more memory since I will not jeopardize my production system until i can verify everything is working. Still interested to hear anyone else's experiences with this.
queeg:
--- Quote from: drealit on September 29, 2010, 07:03:53 PM ---By the way for those that don't already know about this site (although it's already pretty well known lol): http://www.vm-help.com/ . Very good material there regarding ESXi what I was most interested in was the White Box hardware list - http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/esx40_whitebox_HCL.php . I'd rather not spend $1500 on uber components if I don't have to :).
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Awesome. The Asus M4A785T-M and this Intel PCI network card looks like a good AMD based candidate.
You can get these Intel nic's for less on ebay almost any day of the week.
It's also a good board in case it gets repurposed.
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