Central storage for VMware

mishy

Sorry for the bad heading. I have a server which is running ESXI with 2 HDD drives and 5 VMs (Virtual Machines), I would like to have partition or a central storage on my ESXi that I can use to store data from either the VMs or any computer on the same network and make the data accessible to all the VMs. For example lets say I need to install VNC on the VMs I have had to save it to CD and then copy it onto the VMs from CD but I would like to be able to just download stuff using any computer or VM and place it on a central location on my ESXi server and accessible to any computer on the network.

dales

If I understand you correctly surely a CIFs/NFS share would be sufficient from one of the vm's or at a push you could use something like openfiler or freenas to provide the central storage.

jibbajabba

Your only option really is like dales says, a dedicated VM.

You say VNC - I can only assume your VMs are Linux .. in that case either add a central storage VMDK to either VM and present it as NFS or SMB share which then can be accessed by all the other VMs. Another option is yes, either Openfiler or Freenas to provide ISCSI or NFS storage (which would obviously require an additional VM, although a low spec one). If you are familiar with Linux however, simply create a low spec VM and again, present an NFS / SMB.

If you are a Windows guy and you need Windows as you aren't familiar with Linux, then normal shares are the way to go.

mishy

Thanks, I will try to get a NFS/CIFs virtual appliance. I will look at at Freenas I think I have tried Freenas and Openfiler Virtual appliances but I will have to look at them again.