Best direction of virtualisation

[pieter-jan goeman]

Hi Guys,

I recently bought/assembled the following system;

Dell R510
flashed H200 card
2x xeon 5620 quad core (soon)
32 GB ram

I want to use this for FreeNAS and at least a windows vm, possible more vm's, for some experimenting.

Now I'm doubting about the best way to virtualize this stuff.
My first plan was to install FreeNAS 11, and run a windows vm inside it. I haven't tried this before, so have no idea about the performance of this windows vm.
An other idea would be to install ESXI, and run windows and FreeNAS vm's next to each other.
I haven't tried to run a real FreeNAS as vm, will have to do passthrough of the H200 card, don't know how well this works..

What would you guys recommend?

Thanks!

 

[m0nkey_]

I'm in the camp of, if you have to ask how to virtualize, then don't virtualize.

There are a few resources on forum with information on how to virtualize successfully. There are other posts with details on how to completely fail.

 

[pieter-jan goeman]

Hi, thanks for the reply, I must have expressed myself wrong. I'm aware about how virtualisation works, I currently have a working ESXI server with multiple vm's. The only thing that I haven't done before is the passthrough of the H200 card. I've read some stuff about this, and think this should work, so my main question is, what is best, virtualising windows in FreeNAS, or FreeNAS and windows in esxi.
thanks!

 

[lupinehorror]

Hi, thanks for the reply, I must have expressed myself wrong. I'm aware about how virtualisation works, I currently have a working ESXI server with multiple vm's. The only thing that I haven't done before is the passthrough of the H200 card. I've read some stuff about this, and think this should work, so my main question is, what is best, virtualising windows in FreeNAS, or FreeNAS and windows in esxi.
thanks!

i went with running FreeNAS as a VM on ESXi and haven't hit a single problem.
makes for a much more flexible system as far as i'm concerned though i'm sure others will have differing opinions on that.

 

[m0nkey_]

i went with running FreeNAS as a VM on ESXi and haven't hit a simple problem.
makes for a much more flexible system as far as i'm concerned though i'm sure others will have differing opinions on that.

If you're virtualizing, this is the way to go. Doing it correctly, well... you're in the hands of the VMware gods :)

 

[wblock]

i went with running FreeNAS as a VM on ESXi and haven't hit a simple problem.

Yes. When problems are encountered, they won't be simple ones. :)

 

[lupinehorror]

Yes. When problems are encountered, they won't be simple ones. :)

just noticed that! and edited it... ;)