ESXi and FreeNAS - I know....

[saiyan78]

I know Im not supposed to ask but I am getting conflicting answers when I read the forum.
Let me start out by saying I'm new to FreeNAS but not ESXi.
Some forums say its ok, some say don't do it.
From what i have gathered is that if done wrong there is no real RAID redundancy.
Im not quite sure as to why, but i assume its the way the ESXi creates the space for the FreeNAS.
Some posts have given ways around this and some people have said that it doesnt really work.
So my questions are,
Is it really do able? If so can you provide a link to the instruction that explain how?
Has the new 6.0 version fixed any errors?
Could i just install the ESXi on one single drive. Then once it is up add the drives and install FreeNAS and have it use the drives in a RAID? would that fix it?
AGAIN, I know and thanks for any and all help and please bare with me as I am new.

Kris

 

[FlynnVT]

Running ZFS on VMDK drives, themselves stored in VMFS volumes may give the illusion of proper redundancy in FreeNAS, but you could be doing any number of silly things outside the VM to destroy that. e.g. having multiple VMDK "drives" stored in a single non-redundant VMFS volume. Also, you'd have a lot to rebuild and set back up before you get access to your data if you ever needed to recover from an outright system failure.

I can understand why people are very much against this path: few upsides, many downsides.

However, ESXi also gives the option of passing physical discs through to FreeNAS - either as RDMs or by mapping a HBA/SATA controller to the VM via PCI passthrough.

The downside to this route is the performance penalty and distinct possibility of incompatibilities or actual bugs across the many layers of abstraction. If you're lucky, this could manifest as crashes. If you're unlucky this could mean data corruption or outright zpool loss. However, your data does sit on real physical discs that can be reconnected to a non-virtualized FreeNAS instance at any point.

I've been running ESXi 5.0, 5.1, 5.5 and now 6.0 on FreeNAS 8 and 9 for nearly 4 years at home without real issue, a crash, checksum error, or data loss. This is with pass-through RDMs pointing to actual discs, while ESXi and the VMFS containing the FreeNAS boot disc are on an independent drive. The only incompatibility was FreeNAS 9 failing to work with physical-mode RDMs on the onboard SATA ports. Switching to an LSI SAS2008 HBA fixed this. I've rebooted the ESXi machine into a non-virtualized FreeNAS instance a few times and used the ZFS pool on the discs without any problem.

Bear in mind that if an RDM passthrough drive physically fails and/or you need to add a new replacement disc, you'd probably have to bounce the VM and redo the RDM mappings before you could continue. e.g. the VM will fail to boot if an RDM target is missing, so loosing even a single disc on a Z2 pool will require attention before you can run in a degraded state. PCI passthrough would solve these problems, if supported by your hardware and setup.

Be aware of the limitations, fully understand what's going on, test evertything and keep backups. For me, the benefit of running Windows and FreeNAS on the same box is worth it all.

 

[depasseg]

http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/2015/05/yes-you-can-virtualize-freenas.html

 

[Neil Whitworth]

RDM is known to have issues/random failures. Use PCI Passthru

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ol-after-upgrading-to-9-1-1.14629/#post-70925

FreeNAS & ESX can be made to work, but there are many ways it can go disastorusly wrong. If you don't understand all the implications, the SAFE thing is to not virtualise FreeNAS.

Check out the stickies:-

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...nas-in-production-as-a-virtual-machine.12484/
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ative-for-those-seeking-virtualization.26095/
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ide-to-not-completely-losing-your-data.12714/

 

[cyberjock]

Here we go again with another flamewar...

goes to get the popcorn!

 

[SweetAndLow]

Here we go again with another flamewar...

goes to get the popcorn!

So far this thread has had good information and links to good resources.

My opinion is not to virtualized freenas because I think a nas should be a core piece of your infrastructure and shouldn't have the added complexity of other hosts on the hardware creating resources limitations. It can be done and some proprietary nas vendors even have a virtual os product, so it can be done in the enterprise world also.

 

[usergiven]

Long time lurker first time poster. I've learned an incredible amount of information from Cyberjock and jgreco (thank you both). I've had 3 freenas boxes in my career so far. I probably shouldn't talk about the first two. The one I use currently is, without a doubt, never going to stop being a straight up freenas box. No virtualizaiton, nothing. It holds everything I hold dear, I snapshot and replicate those snapshots to similar hardware (Server grade, ECC ram, RAIDz1 pool) on a routine basis.

Supermicro x10sll-f-o with 16gb of ECC 1600 RAM
Pentium g3220
6 WD 2TB drives in RAIDZ2
Running 4 jails

I'm still an idiot when it comes to thinking I can do special things when I'm really not an IT professional in anyway. For example, like an idiot, I just bought the supermicro A1SAi-2750F without REALLY understanding what VT-D would do for me and require from a hardware perspective. *wait up guys, I never believed I would, had the dream to, or will ever virtualize my entire Freenas setup... It just will never happen* I got the VM itch and have been trying not to scratch it for a while now. I setup an Autolab environment and destroyed it and then setup it up again and kicked it all down for fun. I'm toying with the idea of setting up PFSense, a windows VM and some sort of Freenas VM implementation that would allow a few key plugins to run 24/7 all ontop of ESXi 5.5. Is this even a good idea? This wouldn't have much of a storage pool but be more of a "holding area" for some media that I'd be collecting but wouldn't care if it were all lost. My fears come into play that revolve around using freenas to move certain newer files around my network which would eventually end up on my physical Freenas volume for storage. Those files would be completely unprotected by the benefits of ZFS until they ended up on my physical storage but I'm not smart enough to understand the implications of data moving in and out of the different volumes like that. And even that last statement doesn't mention the instability with VM freenas to begin with.

I'm thinking about begging Newegg to allow me to return the Supermicro A1SAi-2750F so I could buy a board with VT-D capability but I don't really know if that will substantially change my playing field or not.

Thanks for letting me join this community

 

[mjws00]

There is no instability with vt-d on current Supermicro or Intel gear. It's also about 3 clicks to get it done... Hardly rocket science. The risk isn't significant to someone who has carefully considered the problem and has a bare metal server as well. The risk is primarily to those who go off half cocked with poor hardware and configuration choices.

Will virtualization change the game? Of course it will. It's an incredible tool. The downside is you add a layer that is difficult to get forum style help on. So troubleshooting requires your skills to be on point.