Using ESXi local storage as nfs or iscsi

[tdubb123]

Is thee anyway you can use the local storage on ESXi as shared nfs or iscsi storage?

[a_p_]

This is only possible indirectly through a VM with the local storage attached as a VMDK (or RDM), which acts as an iSCSI or NFS target.

André

[tdubb123]

Thanks. but the performance of running vms in a vm nfs storage is really bad. I am using openfiler for this. any suggestions?

[a_p_]

As you said, the performance will not be the same as running a target directly on hardware.

If you want ot evaluate you can use either Openfiler, StarWind, Open-E or - if replication between several hosts is required - you may take a look at the HP/Lefthand VSA.

If you descide to ues Openfiler make sure you are aware of http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1026596

André

[tdubb123]

any idea how much HP lefthand VSA is? I am looking at replication between hosts. thanks

[a_p_]

Not sure. I think it's about 3,000$ per license.

Take a look at www.hp.com/go/VSA or  http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13552_na/13552_na.html for specs or search for HP P4000 VSA.

André

[bulletprooffool]

If you do not want to spend any money, your only way to do this is using a Virtualk appliance or VM that presents the NFS.

You have to remember though, if you present the local storage as NFS, then decide to patch your host / use maintenance mode, or the host crashes for whatever reason, your data is immediately inaccessible to all VMhosts that have been using the storage. As such, you are likely to only want to allo wVMs hosted on this host to actually use this storage.

Needless to say, this is no different to just presenting the storage as a local datastore and hosting whatever you like on it.

I can appreciate that you may feel that local storage is wasted on an ESX host, but it can still be used.

I use mine for hosting templates and ISO that I need for various operations in my environment, as well as occasional copies of VMs(in instances where I want a long term copy and a snapshot would be inefficient)

If it is something that I want availlable on all hosts (but can accept downtime), I'll present it using an appliance.

[tdubb123]

ok but I am not sure about using nfs or iscsi as a vm. I tried both openfiler and 2008 as an NFS vm and when i try to start the vms stored on this. its starts but very slow and I cannot even get to the console screen. networking does not start. not reliable

Then I tried migrating vms from the NFS vm back to localstorage and that seems to be a very slow process.

The ghetto script backing up to the NFS vm is fine. but how to restore or use those vmdk incase I need them could be a problem.

Yes unfortunately budget is very limited here.

[DCjay]

Hello,

I have same issue as you. I was tired of slow performance though this is my home LAB.

The only was out is to install starwind in physical server.

This may be your vCentre or workstation. I got better performance.

SLow performace in most cases might be due to network(NIC max throughput or switch port)

Best optionis to use a gigabit link.

Regards

[DSTAVERT]

If you do not have a battery backed caching RAID controller (with write caching enabled) you will not have performance. You would be far better off finding another server and creating a dedicated machine for your shared storage. Move all the disks from your ESXi hosts to the storage server. FreenNAS or open-e or others make excellent software solutions or you can use a simple Linux distribution for NFS.

[DSTAVERT]

The ghetto script backing up to the NFS vm is fine. but how to restore or use those vmdk incase I need them could be a problem.

There is no need to restore anything with a ghettoVCB backup. Simply browse to the nfs datastore and find your backed up VM. Right click and add to inventory. Start the VM.

[tdubb123]

it starts but no console and very very slow. Its not even good for lab use. if anyone has any advice on running nfs on a vm please let me know.

Thanks

[J1mbo]

IMO to make this work properly a quad-core cpu is needed with one vCPU assigned to the NFS server VM and the guest(s) running from that VM, as there are three concurrent tasks involved at least - NFS client and server and also ESXi (for vSwitch and underlying storage access).

But NFS servers running from simple Linux VMs do perform well in my experience.

Also the storage needs some form of write caching, usually via a RAID controller with battery-backed cache.

[tdubb123]

server is quad core. dual vcpu. 8GB ram. I am using openfiler vm.

[Duncan Epping]

what type of diskcontroller and as mentioned above it is with battery for caching purposes?

Duncan (VCDX)

Available now on Amazon: vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS technical deepdive

[tdubb123]

its a dell r710 perc 6i. yes it has a battery cache

[J1mbo]

What are the NFS server export options?

[tdubb123]

async

wdelay

[J1mbo]

hmm.  vmware tools installed in the OpenFiler guest and the vmxnet driver updated?

[tdubb123]

i installed vmaware tools via the repo with the open-vm-tools package not from the esxi server. how do I check the vmxnet driver?

[J1mbo]

I've not used the open tools, only build from source off the 'install/upgrade tools' option.  But using that, the driver needs to be updated manually at the end - some info here: http://blog.peacon.co.uk/wiki/Installing_vmware_tools_on_Ubuntu#VMX_Network_Drivers

On my test box I found a Linux Samba server dished up about 6MB/s with the default driver which was CPU bound (near 100% si on top), after updating the driver transfer rate went up to 40MB/s and CPU utilising went down to 25% :smileyhappy:

Of course this may be a red herring but it is probably worth checking.

[tdubb123]

hi

copying vms over nfs was not an issue. It is starting up the vms within the nfs vm is a problem. It starts up but I cannot see any video from the console.

[DSTAVERT]

copying vms over nfs was not an issue. It is starting up the vms within the nfs vm is a problem. It starts up but I cannot see any video from the console.

Make sure that you haven't run out of RAM. 8GB isn't much.

[jsbarber]

Have you tried looking at Nexenta (Community edition) rather than openfiler? Much better performance for us with NFS. Also all the other benefits of ZFS, incl dedupe, remote replication etc.

[tdubb123]

have you tried running vms on Nexanta? how is it?

[DSTAVERT]

I think you are spending far too much time trying to fake this. It will never really be a satisfactory solution. If you want iSCSI or NFS create a physical one. You don't need much of a server platform to provide a descent NFS or iSCSI server. Pull the disks and controller from your 710 and put them into your NFS / iSCSI server.