ATLAS My Virtualized unRAID server

[savestheday]

Yup figured that out right before you posted.  (see above)

[c3]

Yup figured that out right before you posted.  (see above)

 

Yeah, but you're just waiting for someone to charge you a bit more...

[savestheday]

Yup figured that out right before you posted.  (see above)

 

Yeah, but you're just waiting for someone to charge you a bit more...

 

I responded before you edited and added the link.  Thx for that.

[Johnm]

thanks for catching that. I posted while I was waiting for my morning coffee to brew..

 

I said I was suspect at the price.. The $150 price makes sense..

 

The Kingston page says "Availability Approx: 3/ 9/ 12"

I am not sure if they actually exist or the first batch has sold out, or if that date is just until it is available for direct buy from kingston..

 

 

Update to my "Failing Drive Saga" on Atlas:

For those that noticed my or  were following the mass # of failed drives I was having for several days in a row.

It was either the drives needed a little extra Push to re-seat them. That, or a reboot cleared some some sort of hardware issue?

 

A week later, There have been no additional errors and the drives that had redballed are all running fine.

 

[savestheday]

thanks for catching that. I posted while I was waiting for my morning coffee to brew..

 

I said I was suspect at the price.. The $150 price makes sense..

 

The Kingston page says "Availability Approx: 3/ 9/ 12"

I am not sure if they actually exist or the first batch has sold out, or if that date is just until it is available for direct buy from kingston..

 

For the pair, it's tough to find, but like he c3 posted, you can get two 8GB sticks for about $300 right now (Superbiiz is running 10% off).  Superbiiz is a legit site too, it's where I got my motherboard from.

[SCSI]

I will start to virtualize my unraid to a new Esxi server next week. Can I use the current flash drive with Esxi already installed on it on the new esxi server with a different hardware?

 

Basically I will be moving all VMs from my old esxi server to a new server.

 

Interesting question. I honestly do not know..

Since there are two versions embedded and installable. the embedded (usually an SD card) is server model specific.

 

The installable, is.. well.. installed.  I am not sure if it copies everything or just what it needs or if the config is hardware specific.

 

We usually just reinstall when we change boxes since it only takes a few min to re-import all the guests on the new build.

 

 

It will work just fine.  ESXi installs all drivers, changing hardware has never been a problem for me as long as you stay on the HCL radar.

 

The network config though binds itself to NIC's by MAC address.  When you boot up on a different server you will have to go in through the console and enable the other (new) NIC's.

 

Confirmed. It worked just fine when I used the same USB with esxi installed and datastore drive. esxi booted up like nothing was changed. I also managed to virtualized my unRaid. It was very easy to do because of Johnm's great instructions. Thanks Johnm.

 

Is it possible to use a virtual disk as an app drive or a cache drive? My new motherboard does not have any IDE slots and my previous cache drive was IDE. I don't really need a cache drive but I need a large enough drive to install apps like Sabnzbd, Sickbeard, Plex and etc.

[c3]

Is it possible to use a virtual disk as an app drive or a cache drive? My new motherboard does not have any IDE slots and my previous cache drive was IDE. I don't really need a cache drive but I need a large enough drive to install apps like Sabnzbd, Sickbeard, Plex and etc.

 

Yes

[ldasilva]

has anyone been able to passthrough a video card

id like to copy Johnm setup and run a few vms and one would be a

surveillance system but id like to have a live video feed.

i have a dual core 3.0 duo right now for that system

[c3]

i have a dual core 3.0 duo right now for that system

 

Does that CPU have VTd? E6850 or E8400

[ldasilva]

i have a dual core 3.0 duo right now for that system

 

Does that CPU have VTd? E6850 or E8400

 

its the E7500

 

[BRiT]

It also depends on the motherboard you're using.

[znelbok]

As I will be using a HDD for my datastore, I decided I want to mirror two of them for better protection.

 

I have the X9SCM Motherboard and I set up the two drive in a RAID volume after enabling the RAID option rom in the bios.  The problem now is that it wont boot from the flash that ESXi is loaded on.  It get past the PXE boot and then just sits there.  Removing the drives and re-starting fixes the problem, so its obviously the drives.

 

THe flash is at the top of the list for boot options.

 

Any ideas on how to get a pair of mirrired drives working?  Hopefully ESXi will see the new volume as well

 

Thanks

 

Mick

[Johnm]

has anyone been able to passthrough a video card

id like to copy Johnm setup and run a few vms and one would be a

surveillance system but id like to have a live video feed.

i have a dual core 3.0 duo right now for that system

 

Yes and no to the question in general..

 

Video cards are tricky to pass though and tend to fail more then not. one key factor is if the guest has less then 2 gigs of ram, it will be more likely to work.

 

If the guest has more then 2 gigs. you will need to do a little hacking. even then, it might still blow up. there only a handful cards that are verified to have successfully worked.

 

with ESXi 5 you can enable 3D and advanced video settings now and can pretty much watch realtime video and 3D applications in a guest via RDP now. if you dont need a monitor on the server, you might be able to do it remote...

 

as far as the hardware, the motherboard and CPU must both support VT-d for hardware passthrough.

 

HD still is a bit laggy..

 

 

[Johnm]

As I will be using a HDD for my datastore, I decided I want to mirror two of them for better protection.

 

I have the X9SCM Motherboard and I set up the two drive in a RAID volume after enabling the RAID option rom in the bios.  The problem now is that it wont boot from the flash that ESXi is loaded on.  It get past the PXE boot and then just sits there.  Removing the drives and re-starting fixes the problem, so its obviously the drives.

 

THe flash is at the top of the list for boot options.

 

Any ideas on how to get a pair of mirrired drives working?  Hopefully ESXi will see the new volume as well

 

Thanks

 

Mick

 

If you are trying to use the onboard raid controller, you cant. That is a software raid controller. you would need to install somthing like the Intel Matrix driver and software (that you cant do in ESXi.)

 

you would need a hardware controller.

 

sorry

 

[znelbok]

It's all your fault - you should be sorry.... :-)

 

I'll just have to rely on good backups just in case it goes out.

 

I am foloowing your guide with ESXi5 and there are a number of small differences, nothing that is too difficult.  The formatting of the datastore drive now does not require block sizes to be specified if you use VMFS-5 and it appears to support +2TB drives.  Passthrough is no longer Edit..., but rather Configure Passthrough...  As I said, only little things that most people can manage without a re-write.

 

Passthrough is where I am stuck.  I have the SM SAS2 cards which are not supported and until I find a replecment I thought I would move ahead and isntall unraid with the drives I have on the onboard controller (6 ports).  Unfortunately its an all or nothing deal so I am either going to have to for go a couple of on board ports with unraid, or use them with another OS or as an ISO storage - which I was not going to do originally, I was just going to keep them on the datastore drive as there was only one or two to have.

 

Is this right what I have found, or is there a way to passthrough a drive instead of a whole controller?

 

Mick

[ldasilva]

has anyone been able to passthrough a video card

id like to copy Johnm setup and run a few vms and one would be a

surveillance system but id like to have a live video feed.

i have a dual core 3.0 duo right now for that system

Video cards are tricky to pass though and tend to fail more then not. one key factor is if the guest has less then 2 gigs of ram, it will be more likely to work.

 

If the guest has more then 2 gigs. you will need to do a little hacking. even then, it might still blow up. there only a handful cards that are verified to have successfully worked.

 

with ESXi 5 you can enable 3D and advanced video settings now and can pretty much watch realtime video and 3D applications in a guest via RDP now. if you dont need a monitor on the server, you might be able to do it remote...

 

as far as the hardware, the motherboard and CPU must both support VT-d for hardware passthrough.

i'm not to worried about the cpu and montherboard as i wanted to upgrade to xeon the duo right now is getting taxed close to 100% cpu usage all the time...

 

i need the monitor on the server...RDP is a nice in some cases which ive used....im just worried about the video card passthough

[SCSI]

Is it possible to use a virtual disk as an app drive or a cache drive? My new motherboard does not have any IDE slots and my previous cache drive was IDE. I don't really need a cache drive but I need a large enough drive to install apps like Sabnzbd, Sickbeard, Plex and etc.

 

Yes

 

Can you provide instructions in using/mounting a virtual disk to unraid? I created an 80GB vmdk and formatted it to reierfs and tried to mount it using the "Mount Drive" plug in be Benni Chan but it is not working. I also tried to use the SNAP command but the virtual hard disk is not listed as one of the devices.

 

Edit:

 

Johnm, I followed your RDM instructions and mapped a Seagate 400GB drive connected to the motherboard SATA for my cache but it is still not showing up in unRaid.

 

----

SUCCESS!!! Followed the following in combination to johnm's RDM instructions!

 

Taken from bryanr's thread "UnRAID on VMWare ESXi with Raw Device Mapping"

    For each of your physical disks:

    Add... Hard Disk

    Select the type of disk to use: Use an existing virtual disk

    Browse... datastore1 -> UnRAID -> diskname

    Virtual Device Node: scsi(1:0)

    Mode: Independent / Persistent

    (it should now appear as a Mapped Raw LUN in VM hardware list)

 

 

    Re-configure the SCSI controller that was added for you

    Change Type... LSI Logic SAS

    SCSI Bus Sharing: none

[znelbok]

Hi guys

 

Just booted my YAAC for the first time into UnRaid.  i dont see any drives in UnRaid.

 

I am using the M1015 SAS card with a SM X9SCM MB.

 

Is there anything obvious I need to do that I may have forgotten.  I followed the instructions at the begining of this thread.

 

Posted the question here as well so as not to hijack the thread (too much)

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=17532.0

 

Thanks

 

Mick

[c3]

Flash the M1015 to LSI firmware, unRAID does not support the IBM firmware.

[ReCoN]

Are there any benefits to installing unraid as a VM in ESXI over just running Unraid on it's own? At the moment I would only be using unraid to stream media but as my knowledge and requirement expand I would like to explore VMs further.

[znelbok]

This depends on what your requirements are. I need to run a windows server for home automation, and pfsense firewall. All can run in one machine easily. Others have zone minder.

 

So if you have a need or another server then virtualising may be for you.

 

Mick

[c3]

Are there any benefits to installing unraid as a VM in ESXI over just running Unraid on it's own? At the moment I would only be using unraid to stream media but as my knowledge and requirement expand I would like to explore VMs further.

 

There are no benefits to unRAID from being virtualized. In fact, the hypervisor may reduce performance 0-3%, but I doubt you could measure that small a change.

 

The benefits come when you need another machine for project Y, as you can avoid the costs of more hardware.

[joeshmoe1]

I'd like to add a windows home server 2011 install on a box that currently only runs unraid. Is that possible with this hardware? I've read that the I3-540 processor doesn't support VT-d. Is that essential? Thanks for the help.

 

SUPERMICRO MBD-X8SIL-F-O

Intel Core i3-540 Clarkdale 3.06GHz LGA 1156

Kingston ValueRAM 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 ECC Unbuffered Server Memory

Five hard drives (one parity, one cache) all plugged directly into the motherboard

 

 

[prostuff1]

Is that possible with this hardware?

Kind of

 

I've read that the I3-540 processor doesn't support VT-d. Is that essential?

Yes... and no.

 

SUPERMICRO MBD-X8SIL-F-O

Intel Core i3-540 Clarkdale 3.06GHz LGA 1156

Kingston ValueRAM 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 ECC Unbuffered Server Memory

Five hard drives (one parity, one cache) all plugged directly into the motherboard

If you want to do it properly you will need a processor that supports VT-d.  If you don't want to replace the processor then you are going to have to RDM every drive which can be a pain, especially when one fails.

[Johnm]

+1 to what prostuff said..

 

You do need VT-d for hardware passthrough.

If you have more then a few drives, I would recommended it.

Raw Device Mapping (RDM) can be a real pain over time with multiple drives.

 

In my opinion, WHS2011 and unraid on the same box is a good marriage.

You gain the speed and new features of WHS2011 over V1. You gain the WHS windows back up for your desktops. You also gain the media storage subsystem of unRAID that is better then any WHS (any flavor) ever offered.

 

Any other VM's on top of that is just bonus.

 

 

See here for some of my rambling thought.

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=16140.msg149373#msg149373