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ESXi hardware planning
I plan on having a 240GB ssd and 1 or 2 hdd's to begin with for my lab. It'll begin as a server 2012 lab and evolve into a vmware and cisco lab. I plan on using an FX-8320 and maybe 5 or 6 vm's. I'm still unsure how I'm going to do the storage for all this though.
My current plan is to run esxi from a flash drive, use the ssd for os's, that may expand to a raid1 the first time 2012 expires. HDD's would be for storage and I also plan on having an 8.1 vm with wmc on it for a pvr, that will take most of the storage.
A few questions:
1. I was thinking of running a bsd vm to raidz the hdd's for easy expansion, performance and reliability, is this possible and a good idea?
2. Is running esxi from a flash drive a good idea or should I run it from a small partition on the ssd?
3. I'm planning on buying an intel nic because I don't think realtek is supported by esxi. Is there any need to have multiple nic's?
4. I have 8GB of ram now, if I add another 8 GB is that enough? I think server 2012 runs fine on 4GB, might give 8.1 6GB, bsd should be ok on 1 or 2GB, may have a linux vm too.
5. I have a pci capture card and 2 usb cards, will these be able to work in the 8.1 vm?
6. I have an hdhomerun on the network, this should work right?
My current plan is to run esxi from a flash drive, use the ssd for os's, that may expand to a raid1 the first time 2012 expires. HDD's would be for storage and I also plan on having an 8.1 vm with wmc on it for a pvr, that will take most of the storage.
A few questions:
1. I was thinking of running a bsd vm to raidz the hdd's for easy expansion, performance and reliability, is this possible and a good idea?
2. Is running esxi from a flash drive a good idea or should I run it from a small partition on the ssd?
3. I'm planning on buying an intel nic because I don't think realtek is supported by esxi. Is there any need to have multiple nic's?
4. I have 8GB of ram now, if I add another 8 GB is that enough? I think server 2012 runs fine on 4GB, might give 8.1 6GB, bsd should be ok on 1 or 2GB, may have a linux vm too.
5. I have a pci capture card and 2 usb cards, will these be able to work in the 8.1 vm?
6. I have an hdhomerun on the network, this should work right?
2018 AWS Solutions Architect - Associate (Apr) 2017 VCAP6-DCV Deploy (Oct) 2016 Storage+ (Jan)
2015 Start WGU (Feb) Net+ (Feb) Sec+ (Mar) Project+ (Apr) Other WGU (Jun) CCENT (Jul) CCNA (Aug) CCNA Security (Aug) MCP 2012 (Sep) MCSA 2012 (Oct) Linux+ (Nov) Capstone/BS (Nov) VCP6-DCV (Dec) ITILF (Dec)
2015 Start WGU (Feb) Net+ (Feb) Sec+ (Mar) Project+ (Apr) Other WGU (Jun) CCENT (Jul) CCNA (Aug) CCNA Security (Aug) MCP 2012 (Sep) MCSA 2012 (Oct) Linux+ (Nov) Capstone/BS (Nov) VCP6-DCV (Dec) ITILF (Dec)
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discount81
Member Posts: 213
You are over complicating things I think, why install ESX on a USB drive if you will have an SSD, ESXi doesn't use much space.
Also using BSD/FreeNAS as a VM you won't really be getting any of the benefits of ZFS, ZFS needs access to the hardware itself, if you create a VM, you are just passing the hardware through a hypervisor to BSD.
If the hardware fails there is no redundancy there.
Not to mention FreeNAS doesn't recommend using it in a VM for anything aside from testing.http://www.darvilleit.com - a blog I write about IT and technology. -
Optionstechfiend
Member Posts: 1,481 ■■■■□□□□□□
I could very well be, I've never setup an esxi whitebox before. Only a xenserver one that was kept pretty simple, just a couple hdd's. Good point on zfs and something I didn't think of. It appears to only really be usable as a NAS.
I might be putting an esxi white box on hold for now but does anyone know if the pci and usb capture cards could be pushed through esxi?2018 AWS Solutions Architect - Associate (Apr) 2017 VCAP6-DCV Deploy (Oct) 2016 Storage+ (Jan)
2015 Start WGU (Feb) Net+ (Feb) Sec+ (Mar) Project+ (Apr) Other WGU (Jun) CCENT (Jul) CCNA (Aug) CCNA Security (Aug) MCP 2012 (Sep) MCSA 2012 (Oct) Linux+ (Nov) Capstone/BS (Nov) VCP6-DCV (Dec) ITILF (Dec)