ESXi + UnRaid + WHS2011 Madness!

[axeman]

Like many of the "newer" folks here, I am a descendant of WHS v1. The removal of DE opened my eye to UnRaid (UnR). I like the Parity idea over duplication, which in retrospect looks pretty wasteful.

 

Followed the excellent example set here {http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7914.0}.

 

My Goal: 1 machine to rule them all. I want UnR, WHS 2011, and at least 1 or two regular desktops (I have an unused Win7 license)... I would Love TO try out a MAC VM too...The reason for wanting WHS 2011 is that if I time it right, I can get a legit, licensed copy for about $100. I'm a windows guy, I swore off WHS - but hey at the price, I'm getting a pretty good copy of WHS 2008 R2. Add to that the drop dead simple, bare metal restore back-ups of the rest of the house, AND my pre-paid, deeply discounted Carbonite subscription, myriad of other Windows only tools that work well with Win2k8 (like Hamachi, Orb, etc).

 

Machine has 4 hard drives. 3x WD20EARS, that are passed to UnR via Raw Device Mapping; 1x WD 500GB drive as datastore. Mobo is Asus P6X58D-e, 12GB Ram, i7 960, 650W modular power supply, sitting in a Cooler Master Storm Scout case.

 

First VM created was UnR based on current v4.7 [unr47]

Second VM created was WHS 2011. [whs2011]

 

FAIL #1 I tried storing the [whs2011]'s VMHD on the UnR protected array via NFS. This route proved more challenging than it sounds - ESXi seemed to balk if I created too large of a drive. I had to keep expanding the drive if I wanted it to be large. This method alsO killed the 'split level' concept, so I don't have pooled storage, just 3x 2tb or so drives presented to [whs2011]'s vm. Oh, and it was slow, even got down to 1.5MBps on transfers after I turned on Parity.

 

FAIL #2: So... I deleted that HD, and created a smaller, 200GB one - just enough for OS and about 140GB of data. WHS created it's own default shares on D:\ServerFolders\. I went in and tried to create a symbolic link to the UnR shares that is nested within the WHS share. So for example D:\ServerFolders\Videos\[symlink to UnR\Videos]. That didn't work so well.

 

THEN - I found that if I delete one of the folders, and recreate it exactly in UnR and Symlink to it on WHS, it works! so D:\ServerFolders\[symlink to UnR\Videos] looks like D:\ServerFolders\Videos. I just had to go back to the server Dashboard, and click "Recreate missing folder"

 

So - the good:

• 1. I am getting decent speeds: if I copy DOWN to the server directly, I'm getting 80MB/S;  If I copy via HTPC via WHS2011, I get about 60MB/s. The desktop has a crappy onboard nic (Marvell) which could explain the difference. Write speeds seem to be about 25MB/s.
   
  
• 2. Carbonite semi-works. If I turn carbonite on the ENTIRE D: drive, it works. BUT, I can't individually pick a folder or file within D:\ServerFolders. Whenever I try to right click within, the machine locks up. The only way to get it back is to kill the carbonite related processes.
  

 

the Bad:

• 1. in order for the security to work, I'd have to manage users on UnR AND Whs2011. Not big, just wifey and I are only - infant not online (yet)
  
• 2. Shadow copies (another reason for wanting WHS2011)... pseudo work. I installed VMWare tools, which adds shadowcopy support, and even tried creating a whole separate VMHD to store them on (so that the shadow copies aren't on the UnR array). It seems to take the snapshot, and even store some data (the other drive keeps filling up). When I try to restore previous versions directly on the server, I get a view of the current version folder, not the archive. I know this because if I keep two windows open, and actually delete a file from the current version folder, it immediately disappers from the "archived" version. If I try from any other machine, I get "No Previous versions found". Oh and the DiskShadow command doesnt do much. It wont expose a shadow copy that is visible via the Gui.
  

 

 

Now - my questions to the gurus:

 

1. I have two excellent Intel nics in the Esxi machine, one is in use - the other is just sitting there. What should I do with it?

  A. dedicate to UnR

  B. dedicate to WHS2011

  C. rip out and dedicate to HTPC (team with onboard?)

 

2. Any idea why it looks like i'm creating shadow copies, but cant' get at them? I know I saw some talk about UnR having NTFS support

is that what I need to get this piece working? Maybe I should upgrade to the beta?

 

3. Is there a way for me a as a non-paying (yet) user to test the 6 drive version of the Beta? I really would like to see what creating a smallish cache drive right on my primary datastore would do. I am definitely going to be needing 6 drive support, as I decomission the old WHS, I will have spare HDs to bring over.