What OS do you run on your ESX/i Target Storage Box

M

matessim

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Apr 8, 2009
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i was wondering what most people are using, i heard alot are using FreeNAS, since its easy to set up with iSCSI and all with ESXi, so was wondering other stuff people run.

Also, i was wondering is it possible to use WHS as the host and connect ESXi to it? haven't actually seen anyone doing this yet.
 
In my test lab I have used Openfiler in the past but currently using Windows 2008 Storage Server. it was more for a POC but it gets the job done.
 
freeNAS + iSCSI + ESX = no. the BSD target doesn't comply with spec and will cause data corruption. Bad idea.

The current LET will work, although it's also not supported (OpenFiler, RedHat, etc) - as will the microsoft one.

FreeNAS + NFS works great though.
 
Data corruption really? didn't know that, i saw it being done on hak5 if anyone knows it, someone should really let them know..
 
From what I've experienced (granted, this was middle of last year), yeah - it didn't support one of the VPD pages correctly. Now, that may have changed, so YMMV, but at that point it didn't work right. :)
 
matessim said:
was it difficult to set up as a target for your Virtualization box?
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Not really, a few issues that i had to troubleshoot (cant remember them now) but nothing too bad. I have setup a few iscsi storage devices in the past from SUN and DELL so i have a little experience.

Post any questions or issues along the way and we will all be happy to help. A lot of good knowledgeable people monitor this forum and are very helpful.
 
Openfiler 2.3 iSCSI, easy to setup.

**running on Dell PowerVault 775N with PowerVault 220S connected via U320 SCSI.
 
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YEah, but you have to pay for the VSA eventually ;)

I don't think starwind is supported either.
 
Windows 2008 Enterprise R2 for the host OS. The box has some XP VM's and a Windows 2008 VM as well.
 
Also can you share the systems your running them on?
is anyone running it on a enterprise solution like a SAN?
 
They dont need a budget, vendors are going to throw the hardware at them to make sure it ends up on the HCL.
 
I tested CentOS 5.x and Fedora. Currently has a Pentium 4HT 2.8GHz/1G RAM Fedora 12 SW RAID-1 providing NFS service.
 
matessim said:
i was wondering what most people are using, i heard alot are using FreeNAS, since its easy to set up with iSCSI and all with ESXi, so was wondering other stuff people run.

Also, i was wondering is it possible to use WHS as the host and connect ESXi to it? haven't actually seen anyone doing this yet.
Click to expand...

At work I run CentOS 5.something to run with IET for iSCSI SAN connectivity. It seems to perform quite well but it acts just like an external hard drive: interrupt the iSCSI connection in any way and ESXi (and the VMs using iSCSI as a datastore) gets very unhappy.
 
OpenFiler 2.3 iSCSI target VM for my ESX VMs, which are running under Workstation 7. Like buttah.
 
doh said:
At work I run CentOS 5.something to run with IET for iSCSI SAN connectivity. It seems to perform quite well but it acts just like an external hard drive: interrupt the iSCSI connection in any way and ESXi (and the VMs using iSCSI as a datastore) gets very unhappy.
Click to expand...

Use openfiler instead. It uses the LET and has storage by lun instead of by IQN, and supports multi-target failover as well. Path balancing as well.
 
sabregen said:
OpenFiler 2.3 iSCSI target VM for my ESX VMs, which are running under Workstation 7. Like buttah.
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Mind explaining how that is laid out physically? Like what is on what box and how are they connected?

Thanks.

(n00b trying to visualize this setup)
 
ESX 4 is now supported as a guest OS on Workstation 7 and OpenFiler runs as a VMware applicance so you can run it all on one box really if you wanted. That's my assumption to how he has it setup. I had a setup similar back before it was supported working on Workstation 6. Worked like a champ.

I had 2 ESX machines with two network connections, one for network connectivity and one for the iscsi path. Same for the OpenFiler machine.
 
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