so i’ve already confirmed that my system should be hardware compatible with esxi, but what i want to do, is stick 3 4TB drives in, and run them in RAIDz. then use the raidz array for most of my VMDK storage. for like freenas and kodi, etc. this should be doable, right? i’ve basically got no experience with raidz, but ive used vmware workstation before.
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huh, I knew proxmox did ZFS, didn’t realise esxi did too
Do you actually mean RAIDz or do you mean normal RAID?
RAIDz is only on zfs. Unless it changed recently, I do not think ESXI supports zfs. I think it only supports their custom filesystem. You can however use a hardware RAID controller, then have ESXi use that array.
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unless the controller / card with the disks attached is being passed through to the Freenas VM?
then the Freenas VM manages the data storage, and then sharing it’s storage out like smb/ip/ethernet to other VM’s?
oh. i thought id seen that esxi supported zfs, but that’s probably bad info. i could do proxmox tho. that should work better, eh?
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I haven’t used proxmox, but I hear it should be almost as easy, with gui config for storage arrays, and setting up vm’s / containers for plex.
I have seen a few youtube vids, which explain it quite clearly, and it looks nice and straightforward, especially if you are used to vsphere/esxi (it’s not the same, but similar concepts)
I have used Freenas, and that was pretty straight forward, unless you want some esoteric setup for the datasets on the pools
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yeah, ive done a little in the past. basically, i just want to offload bulky things like video files and homelab, that’s don’t need SATA level bandwidth or such. going to be doing it after building my new main system, by recycling my old hardware into it.
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You might want to get 1 more 4 TB drive so you could do a pair of mirror vdevs. Then you could have two drives fail (so long as it’s not a pair) and you’d get the read performance of 4 drives (though only write speed of 2). Plus it’s a easier to expand the pool later if you need to add a vdev (2 disk vs 3+). I also hear it’s easier to upgrade the size of your drives later with mirror sets. Anyways it’s effectively Raid 5 vs Raid 10. Up to you, just pointing out an option.
edit Oops… just noticed your last message that you’re recycling old hardware. Probably not an option then.
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It might be even better if @Commissar started with a 3way mirror.
Later on, if a 4th drive is brought, one could be detatched (not removed; detached) from the 3way mirror, then added back as a mirror comprising the 3rd and 4th drives, to double the size?
There is that, but he’d start with a single drives capacity instead of two drives like in his original plan, and with mirror sets. Dunno what his storage needs might be. But that is certainly an option to use his 3 drives currently.
new drives, mostly. 8TB of raidz should be more than enough atm. some other less critical things may stay on the WD blue and WD black i have currently. my new main system will have one of my 500gb ssds for the boot, and a 2tb m.2 drive. so games will stay there. server is going to be mainly homelab and movies. nothing critical. (realistically, these days, not much i ahve is really critical, there’s only a few thing i consider irreplacable).
Well if 8TB is what you need and future expansion isn’t really a concern either, Raidz should be fine.
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and if it comes down to it, i have enough sata ports and slots to put in another 3 drive
if not, expander cards are affordable. and chassis with hot-swap bays.
I’m not saying there’s a reason people get hooked and end up in such places as /r/homelab or /r/datahoarder
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system im building in already ahs 7 drive… ill need to clear out a few to open some SATA ports on the mobo, but that’s fine.
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