Not sure this is the correct section to ask or not..but here goes..

 

In this forum, I have seen almost all that are doing unraid with esxi has unraid install as a VM in esxi. Meaning the esxi is running as a base. Question:

 

1. If I have other VMs, do i store it in unraid or do i store it in the hdd out of unraid? If I store it out of unraid, then if there is a disk failure, my VM will be gone right? will i be able to put it in the unraid hdd?

 

kind of confused..

1. If I have other VMs, do i store it in unraid or do i store it in the hdd out of unraid? If I store it out of unraid, then if there is a disk failure, my VM will be gone right? will i be able to put it in the unraid hdd?

 

kind of confused..

 

You can do either.

 

ESXi has a concept of datastores which is where Virtual machine data is kept.

 

Traditionally you will have a local data store on your server which is built from disk local to that server (i.e not disks used by unraid). You can put your VM on that. It's up to you if you choose to mitigate disk failure by making this data store redundant using RAID of some sort. This would all be outwith unraid though.

 

Or you can make a datastore via NFS. This means you can could start your unraid virtual machine, export a portion of it via NFS then add that NFS export as a new datastore in ESXi and create new vm's there. This means all VM's you create there rely on your unraid VM running and performance won't be great, but it gives your vm data protection via unraid.

 

The latter option is a bit 'meta' / recursive. But it does work. I do it for some vm's myself.

1. yes.. if you have it on the drive outside of unraid, it will be lost with a drive failure...

 

If you have it inside unraid, it "might" perform rather slow due to the nature of how unraid  works.

 

I would keep the other guests outside of unraid for performance reasons.. then you can back up the other guests to unraid or some other location.

Thanks for the clarification boof.

 

Johnm:

 

I see..so the implementation would be something like below:

 

1. Run esxi via flash drive

2. Dedicate a hdd for all vm

3. Install unraid as 1 of the vm and configure all other hdds as part of unraid.

4. Vm files will be backed up to unraid drives

 

Question:

 

1. If esxi fails/dies, will all my vm survive?

2. Will all my vm be able to access files stored in unraid hdds?

Thanks for the clarification boof.

 

Johnm:

 

I see..so the implementation would be something like below:

 

1. Run esxi via flash drive

2. Dedicate a hdd for all vm

3. Install unraid as 1 of the vm and configure all other hdds as part of unraid.

4. Vm files will be backed up to unraid drives

 

Question:

 

1. If esxi fails/dies, will all my vm survive?

2. Will all my vm be able to access files stored in unraid hdds?

 

1- Yes

worth backing up the esxi as well (configurations)

 

Run vmware vsphere CLI > command prompt (download vmware vsphere cli from vm site)

Parameters: Parameters: vicfg-cfgbackup.pl --server <server_name> -s <backup_file_name>

example:vicfg-cfgbackup.pl --server ESXI_SERVER -s C:\ESXI_SEVERFILE.txt

 

to restore

vicfg-cfgbackup.pl --server <server_name> -l <backup_file_name>

 

Unsure (cant remember) does the above command just restore the settings AND the vm images?  If it doesn't its a matter of going into each of your datastore(s) and going into each folder and right click add to inventory.  It will then appear in your vcenter listing.

 

2 - Yes assumes it can see unraid , unraid will treat it like a client.

 

For point 4 - Vm files will be backed up to unraid drives

Would recommend veeam, (they have a free version) it compresses and shrinks it right down to one image.

 

 

For example we have a blackberry server in work its 50Gb partition, of which 29Gb is used.  Using veeam as a test to backup it got it down to 9Gb in size.

 

 

Though with the free one , its not automated to back up the virtual machine.

 

Thanks for the info nickcardwell...currently i am looking for the hardware for my server..

so..before I add HDDs to UNRAID, I should add these HDDs in the settings section of the UNRAID VM in vSphere?