virtual ESXI why do it

[intertan]

why are people doing this? My current board can handle this provided I upgrade my cpu and add more ram.

 

I am planning on purchasing some more drives next year and a few other stuff to finally finish off my build.

 

Maybe debating on doing this route if people can convince me.

[garycase]

In a word:  Isolation.

 

UnRAID was designed as a very flexible and reliable NAS that would allow mixing drives into a reliable, fault-tolerant storage array.    Since it was based on Linux, many folks started creating add-ons for it; and there are now many packages that folks like to run within the UnRAID server.

 

But the simple fact is that adding these additional packages can result in a less reliable system.    Using ESXi to virtualize UnRAID allows you to keep the UnRAID VM "pure" -- and to then create another VM in which you install the other software packages you want to run ... these all use UnRAID for their data store; but are completely isolated from it.

 

If you aren't planning to run a lot of add-ons, and are simply using UnRAID as a NAS, then there's no reason to virtualize it.

 

[intertan]

all right I think you convinced me

 

I run sab,sick,plex,couch(trying to figure out how to run multiple copies) to name a few.

 

I have been running into some stability issues as of late. not unraid itself just the plugins.

 

I will look into it during Christmas as I get some time to relax

 

[Helmonder]

+1 to all of that... I used to be a real unraid tinkerer... Adding packages,  adding functionality, solving stuff that comes along.. It actually was fun to do it also.. But at some point it becomes a bit boring to find out that another plugin does not play nice with another one..

 

I now have a plain vanilla unraid running in one virtual bubble, and a seperate VM running Sab, Transmission, Sick, Couch and Plex (I call it MediaBeast)..

 

The system is WAY more stable, does not need any reboots and I end up kind of "forgetting unraid is there", which is the way it was meant I think...

 

Added benefit (and that was something I was worried about) is that virtualizing with ESXI is EXTREMELY easy and also free.. The software is free so no misery with hacked copies and stuff...

 

You would need 16GB memory to do it and also a processor with VT-D capability... It litteraly took me 3 hours to get everything up...

 

ESXI also brings you snapshots... Going to install something new in MediaBeast ?  No troubles any more with installing stuff and then feeling and needing to remove it.. You make a snapshot before you do the change, see if it works and if it doesnt then reverting back takes 1 minute and 1 buttonpress...

[ScienTiFIC]

+1 to all of that... I used to be a real unraid tinkerer... Adding packages,  adding functionality, solving stuff that comes along.. It actually was fun to do it also.. But at some point it becomes a bit boring to find out that another plugin does not play nice with another one..

 

I now have a plain vanilla unraid running in one virtual bubble, and a seperate VM running Sab, Transmission, Sick, Couch and Plex (I call it MediaBeast)..

 

The system is WAY more stable, does not need any reboots and I end up kind of "forgetting unraid is there", which is the way it was meant I think...

 

Added benefit (and that was something I was worried about) is that virtualizing with ESXI is EXTREMELY easy and also free.. The software is free so no misery with hacked copies and stuff...

 

You would need 16GB memory to do it and also a processor with VT-D capability... It litteraly took me 3 hours to get everything up...

 

ESXI also brings you snapshots... Going to install something new in MediaBeast ?  No troubles any more with installing stuff and then feeling and needing to remove it.. You make a snapshot before you do the change, see if it works and if it doesnt then reverting back takes 1 minute and 1 buttonpress...

 

I was Looking into setting up ESXI for the same reasons but was wondering if its hard to setup ounce you have your Unraid server Going?

what would be the min requirements for ram and cpu to get a ESXI build going on my already setup unraid server? I was going to wait till I upgrade my MB and CPU but this thread sold me on ESXI. Whats the steps to get ESXI on a System that already has Unraid?

[intertan]

all right think I am sold.

I do need more ran and a different cpu. Right now I got a low end i3 and looking at plex and trans coding I probably should get a higher end xeon. Plus more ram.

 

I am also waiting till the 5tb reds come out. I will buy 3 of them assuming they are a decent price and transfer all my stuff to external drives then completely rebuild unraid from new.

[BobPhoenix]

I was Looking into setting up ESXI for the same reasons but was wondering if its hard to setup ounce you have your Unraid server Going?

what would be the min requirements for ram and cpu to get a ESXI build going on my already setup unraid server? I was going to wait till I upgrade my MB and CPU but this thread sold me on ESXI. Whats the steps to get ESXI on a System that already has Unraid?

I had unRAID and Win7x86 setup on a X7SBE MB with 8GB ECC ram.  unRAID got 2GB and Win7x86 got 3GB rest was free or used by ESXi since with pass through was limited to 5.9GB on that MB for memory reservations that pass through requires.  unRAID got 3 AOC-SAT2-MV8 controllers on pass through.  Win7x86 got 2 tuners (HVR-2250s) on pass through and 5 RDM'd drives off MB Sata ports.  CPU was Q9550S.  Bios was 2.0.  I would call this the minimum when using pass through.  If not using pass through then could use up full 8GB.

 

ESXi requires a USB boot device and data store drive or a data store drive that is also a boot device.  So if you have a single USB header you could use it for the unRAID flash drive and set ESXi to boot from HDD data store drive.  I had mine that way for a while.  I since switched to USB boot and standalone datastore drive.  It allowed me more flexibility on setup and data store failure in ESXi.

 

To setup ESXi on a system that already contains unRAID:

First disconnect all HDDs and unRAID flash drive from system except for the drive(s) you want to be ESXi boot and datastore drives.  I used a CD image to install ESXi so I had a CD drive connected via IPMI virtual media but I believe you can install ESXi from a flash drive as well.  Boot up to the ESXi setup drive and run through the setup procedure as outlined in the Atlas thread on this forum.  Once ESXi is setup you can reconnect all of you HDDs and unRAID flash drive to your system.  Setup an unRAID VM as outlined in the Atlas thread.  I originally used the plop boot CD method but have since switched to VMDK virtual HDD boot.  ESXi will not boot a VM directly from USB (at least with standard BIOS don't know about EFI) so you have to boot from a virtual HDD or a boot CD image.  If you get the preconfigured VMDK or plop boot CD just setup the VM to boot from THAT and connect the flash drive to the VM USB controller and pass through your HDD controller.  You will most likely NOT be able to pass through the MB controller since that would be where your datastore drive is so you might need more controllers to pass through to the unRAID VM.  Then just boot the VM and you will most likely boot right up.  I followed the Atlas thread rather strictly the first time I setup an ESXi server and still refer back to it at times.

[Helmonder]

Actually unraid is perfectly suitable for esxi... There are several ways of doing it.. There is a very nice thread (Atlas) on how to do it.. You would need to "pas thru" your disk controllers, that is what you need VT-D on the cpu for. When you have done that you will run fine with a 2gb or 4gb (if have 4) VM.. You can actually use a tool (its all the ATLAS thread) to boot from your good old usb drive, that is the best thing you can do since it means that should something go bad or you want to get rid of esxi again the only thing you would need to do is boot from that usb stick and you are running plain unraid again without esxi..

 

I would advise having at least 16gb... With 16GB I had running:

 

ESXI 5.1

Unraid VM 4GB with unraid and airvideo

MediaBeast VM 4GB with sickbeard, couchpotato, transmission, lazylibrarian, plex, sabnzbd

OpenVPN VM with PPT VPN setup so I can get into my system from the internet

Vsphere 5.1 (you do not need this but it gives you nice graphs and extra gimmicks with esxi, not needed at all though)

 

In the end I like the setup so much that I end up doing more and more with the VM's so I have actually upgraded to 32gb and have also added a second one to play around with :-)

[garycase]

Win7x86 got 2 tuners (HVR-2250s) on pass through and 5 RDM'd drives off MB Sata ports.  CPU was Q9550S. 

 

Bob => Did this setup record 4 Clear-QAM channels at-a-time okay?  It's intriguing to virtualize the media recording ... I currently have all the recordings done by my main HTPC (with 4 2250's for 8-at-a-time capability; although we never do that).

 

[BobPhoenix]

Win7x86 got 2 tuners (HVR-2250s) on pass through and 5 RDM'd drives off MB Sata ports.  CPU was Q9550S. 

 

Bob => Did this setup record 4 Clear-QAM channels at-a-time okay?  It's intriguing to virtualize the media recording ... I currently have all the recordings done by my main HTPC (with 4 2250's for 8-at-a-time capability; although we never do that).

I'm using SageTV to do my recordings but I have between 7 and 9 tuners available on my 3 Win7x64 VMs on my 3 ESXi servers.  Pass through of HVR-2250s and AverMedia Duet PCIe cards on pass through (had to stick with Sandy Bridge CPU and bios to make Duet be recognized on the board).  Other tuners used on the VMs: HD-PVRs on USB 2.0 and 3.0 passed through to Win7x64 VM, NVidia  DualTV on PCI slot on Tyan MB, HVR-1600 on PCI slot on Tyan MB,  HDHRv1s networked tuners, HVR-950Qs on passed through MB USB controller.  On Thursdays on my ATSC and QAM server I've had up to 9 things recording for about 4 minutes of overlap at a time without problems.  It regularly does 4-5 whole shows at a time.  When I was using the X7SBE and the two HVR-2250s it would record fine but the VM would have problems and lockup every 2-6 weeks so I switched to X9SCM-F and Tyan S5512GM2NR MBs with Sandy Bridge CPUs and haven't had near the problems.

 

 

[Ice_Black]

MediaBeast VM 4GB with sickbeard, couchpotato, transmission, lazylibrarian, plex, sabnzbd

 

Which linux distro?

 

I guess you are installing each apps manually.

[ScienTiFIC]

MediaBeast VM 4GB with sickbeard, couchpotato, transmission, lazylibrarian, plex, sabnzbd

 

Which linux distro?

 

I guess you are installing each apps manually.

Is the Media Beast VM Windows or a Linux Distro?

Can I get away with having 4 GB of ram for unraid VM and Media VM with plex XBMC and Subsonic ?

[Ford Prefect]

Win7x86 got 2 tuners (HVR-2250s) on pass through and 5 RDM'd drives off MB Sata ports.  CPU was Q9550S. 

 

Bob => Did this setup record 4 Clear-QAM channels at-a-time okay?  It's intriguing to virtualize the media recording ... I currently have all the recordings done by my main HTPC (with 4 2250's for 8-at-a-time capability; although we never do that).

 

...to chime in on that, I've been hosting a VM (Win7HP-64bit) with 4GB and a quad DVB-S2 tuner card passed through....using ARGUSTV inside for recording (as it can be used via WebUI)

As a test, I've been able to record 20+ Streams (16xSD/4xHD as there weren't that many HD programmes out there at that time) concurrently without problems to my NAS-VM (being ZFS, not unRAID hence).

[Helmonder]

MediaBeast VM 4GB with sickbeard, couchpotato, transmission, lazylibrarian, plex, sabnzbd

 

Which linux distro?

 

I guess you are installing each apps manually.

 

Ubunto 32 server mini..

[Helmonder]

MediaBeast VM 4GB with sickbeard, couchpotato, transmission, lazylibrarian, plex, sabnzbd

 

Which linux distro?

 

I guess you are installing each apps manually.

Is the Media Beast VM Windows or a Linux Distro?

Can I get away with having 4 GB of ram for unraid VM and Media VM with plex XBMC and Subsonic ?

 

Its a 32bit ubuntu linux distro with all the apps installed serately thru apt-get, works real easy actually..

 

Ubuntu:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/server

 

Vmware tools:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VMware/Tools

 

Then just google for sabnzbd, sickbeard and couchpotato "install ubuntu", its real easy.

[doron]

Pass through of HVR-2250s and AverMedia Duet PCIe cards on pass through (had to stick with Sandy Bridge CPU and bios to make Duet be recognized on the board). 

 

Can you please expand on that? What is the limitation with the AverMedia's?

I have a few of these that I intend to use for my media VM...

[Ice_Black]

MediaBeast VM 4GB with sickbeard, couchpotato, transmission, lazylibrarian, plex, sabnzbd

 

Which linux distro?

 

I guess you are installing each apps manually.

Is the Media Beast VM Windows or a Linux Distro?

Can I get away with having 4 GB of ram for unraid VM and Media VM with plex XBMC and Subsonic ?

 

Its a 32bit ubuntu linux distro with all the apps installed serately thru apt-get, works real easy actually..

 

Ubuntu:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/server

 

Vmware tools:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VMware/Tools

 

Then just google for sabnzbd, sickbeard and couchpotato "install ubuntu", its real easy.

 

Cool stuff,

 

What are you using to transfer files from ubuntu to unraid?

[BobPhoenix]

Pass through of HVR-2250s and AverMedia Duet PCIe cards on pass through (had to stick with Sandy Bridge CPU and bios to make Duet be recognized on the board). 

 

Can you please expand on that? What is the limitation with the AverMedia's?

I have a few of these that I intend to use for my media VM...

The Ivy Bridge compatible BIOS (not just the CPU) does not recognize the cards without a bios update which I don't believe has been done on the SuperMicro(X9SCM-F) and Tyan (S5512GM2NR) MBs.  Intel updated there (DH77EB) MB bios' and the card is recognized and works just fine.  If you check the bios on these MBs you will see indications that you have cards plugged in with Intel being the easiest as it lists the card plugged into each slot something I don't remember on the SuperMicro and Tyan MBs - but I could be wrong.  When I rolled back the BIOS to Sandy Bridge ONLY compatible bios on my Tyan MB the AverMedia Duet was recognized but the Ivy Bridge BIOS did not even know the card was plugged into the board and it wasn't available to the OS or ESXi for pass through it simple didn't exist.  This was all with Sandy Bridge CPUs installed on the MBs (except the Intel DH77EB which had Ivy Bridge).  I first found this out when I upgraded the BIOS on my X9SCM-F but changed nothing else.  One minute I had a Duet passed through to a Windows VM then the next minute (after the bios upgrade) it was gone.  I bricked my MB trying to downgrade my BIOS back to what I had and ended up overnighting a replacement MB which already had the 2.0a bios on it so STILL wasn't able to use the Duet.  Had the same problem with 2.02 bios on Tyan but I turned in a trouble report to them asking if it was possible to DOWNGRADE my bios back to 1.05.  They said sure and sent me a special .com file with the calls configured correctly to the flash program to downgrade the bios correctly - it worked because I now have 2 Tyan MBs with 1.05 bios'.

 

Did that long rambling post tell you what you wanted to know?

[doron]

Did that long rambling post tell you what you wanted to know?

 

You kiddin' me?! It's extremely helpful. Thank you.

 

Mine is an X10SL7-F (i.e. Haswell). I have not yet pulled the AverMedia from where it is now, so I can't tell whether it will be detected correctly by the C222 PCIe controller, but from your report it seems like there's a fair chance it wouldn't play ball with the more recent controllers / BIOS code.