Questions and uncertainties regarding the Hypervisors


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Dear All,

Please excuse my ignorance but feel very green in the virtualization world. Have read a lot around but still have some questions. Before asking them would like to give you some additional information helping to understand my situation.

Currently I have Unraid 5.0 final (32bit) running extremely well. Along with the user shares I successfully managed to install Plex, MySQL, AirVideo, Transmission and some other plugins living their life on the cache drive. As I am feeling nervous to start from scratch with the 64 bit version as everything is working smooth now, I would like to try virtualization, running Unraid as a guest and not touching anything in its current configuration. It must stay in secret for Unraid that "he" is not alone in his house anymore. The aim is to have Ubuntu based server environment in parallel where I can run various specialized software not available for unraid or docker at the moment. This way I will get rid of one more server to take care in my house and utilize the power of my current one where unraid is.

So here are my questions:

1. Obviously I can run a Hypervisor from a flash drive (not sacrificing a precious sata port). Are there any known problems with this idea except that probably it will boot slower which is not such a problem especially if it is stable enough and not needed to reboot more then once in 3-4 years :)

2. Am I right saying that having in mind there will be two flash sticks (the hypervisor and unraid) there is not going to be a problem with the boot priority which I am going to setup in the bios of the MB.

3. If all goes well obviously I will need to pass-through the sata controllers to Unraid. I have 2 Supermicro SASLP-MV8 and one Dell Perc H310 (IT mode). What I read was that the Supermicro controllers are not the best choice. This was some years ago. Are there any changes in this case? If not I can replace them with H310 (I have 2 more).

4. Once unraid is up and running as a host practically I shouldn't notice any difference in terms of performance or am I not right in this statement? Currently the parity checks are going with app 95 MB/sec (app. 9 hrs).

5. What is the most stable hypervisor and easiest to manage? Xen, KVM, Esxi or something else? I am a lawyer and not an IT guru ;)

6. I will need to install Ubuntu on a Sata port HDD. Ideally I would like to use the sata port from the Mainboard. This means the sata port from the MB have to be passed-through to the VM running Ubuntu? Is this possible or I will need additional controller just for 1 HDD hosting Ubuntu.

7. Once Ubuntu is working I will need to have access to 5 USB ports. There are not so many on my Mainboard so obviously I will need to use a hub. May I passthrough them to Ubuntu and be sure that their address is not going to be changed once the VM is restarted. This is important as the USB ports are needed to serve a bunch of card-readers and their address must stay the same all the time in order to prevent a mess with their settings.

 

I know I can use ver.6 and make things easier but I learned during the years that often the easiest option is not the best one. I do not want to ruin my current unraid configuration as it is working stable enough and the plugins I use are working great. Docker is just not for me. Just don't have the time and expertise to build my own containers for the software I need and in general don't feel comfortable with this. So what you guys can recommend me.

My hardware details are in my signature.

 

Thanks for reading this boring stuff. :)

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First, you want to try "virtualization" ... not "visualization"  :)

 

Second, there are several approaches you could take:

 

(1)  If you want to run UnRAID as a VM, I suggest you read the various ESXi threads on this forum.    It takes a bit to set it up; but UnRAID runs very nicely on the appropriate hardware under ESXi ... and you'll then have an excellent hypervisor with very nice management tools to set up your other virtual machines.

 

(2)  You could move to v6 when it's out; and use the built-in hypervisor support (probably KVM) that it will have embedded.    It may not initially have robust management tools for the hypervisor; but I'd expect those to be available within a few releases.    This would leave UnRAID "native" on the OS.

 

(3)  You can leave your stable NAS that's "... running extremely well ..." alone; and build a second machine for your VM's.  That could run ESXi, or you could run Windows as the native OS and use either Hyper-V or VMware Workstation for your VM's.    This is the approach I currently use; although I'll likely migrate to #2 after UnRAID's hypervisor support is more robust and includes a good management tool.

 

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Thank you Gary for your reply. Helpful as always. iOS spellcheck is not educated enough, hence the "visualization";)

 

I also know that ver.5 and "working extremely well" is an oxymoron, but haven't had any serious issues except the usual web interface disappearance which is obviously an Incurable illness of ver.5. ;)

 

1. Obviously esxi is the way to go and according to you the speeds and the general behavior of unraid should stay as it is.

2. It is still a question of time. Version 6 as I read is far from a stable release and I don't want to wait and rely on a still non existing software.

3. There will be no need of another hardware as there are already two presented and want to aggregate them in one.

 

Thanks again for your input. Yours and others experts additional elaboration, especially on the USB questions would be highly appreciated.

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r.e. the USB question:  If you go with ESXi as your hypervisor, it (like UnRAID) boots from a USB flash drive.

 

You'll need to set up the UnRAID VM to boot from a virtual hard drive, with a USB flash drive available to the VM.  UnRAID will boot fine from a hard drive, but needs to "see" its key on a USB drive.    I don't have an ESXi-based UnRAID system, but there are several threads on this forum that outline the process for setting it up.

 

 

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1) ESXi boots of a USB and is a little slower but like you said rarely restarts.

2) motherboard should only see ESXI/USB in boot order. unRaid stick shouldn't be there (or further down the list) It should be passed through to the VM and be in the VM's boot order

3) yes, if that is all your motherboard uses is the 3 cards for sata ports then that leaves you MB ones free

4) Shouldn't be a great deal different

5) I've found ESXi the easier to setup vs XenServer. (Not Xen on an OS)

6) Yes yo ucan pass through the MB Sata ports for Ubuntu but mostly the Sata MB ports are used by ESXi and the HDDs are portioned out to the different VMs, like Ubunutu. Unless you need to passthrough the HDD for a specific reason? UnRaid needs it but most others don't

7) Don't know, would have to try it out.

 

With ESXi I've setup mine so that if it fails or when during trouble shooting I can change the boot order on the motherboard to boot off the unRaid flash drive and everything should come back up as normal. That way you should be able to 'test' it.

 

Josh

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2)  You can have 2 flash drives one running ESXi and one for unRAID.  I am running my ESXi on a small SSD because I could not pass through my onboard sata ports so they were going unused.

 

3)  All I know is my LSI 9211-8i works great.

 

4)  My parity checks are over 100 MB/s

 

5)  I use ESXi and is very easy to manage

 

6)  Why do you need to install to install ubuntu directly to a hard drive?  You can install it directly to a Virtual HDD.  I have Windows 8.1 installed a Virtual HDD which is stored my my SSD.

 

7)  I don't know the complete answer to your question but you can select certain USB devices to pass though to a VM.  For instance you have to pass though the unraid usb drive to the unraid VM.  You may be able to pass though the usb hub.

 

I would suggest using ESXi.  Run PLOP with unraid that way you are booting the VM directly off the usb (it does take longer to boot but once it is up and running there is no difference).  If there is any problem with ESXi or other hypervisor you can just just boot unraid without changing anything.

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