From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Dec 3 00:59:34 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8113B49A for ; Tue, 3 Dec 2013 00:59:34 +0000 (UTC) Received: from blu0-omc4-s24.blu0.hotmail.com (blu0-omc4-s24.blu0.hotmail.com [65.55.111.163]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 46F94188D for ; Tue, 3 Dec 2013 00:59:33 +0000 (UTC) Received: from BLU0-SMTP278 ([65.55.111.136]) by blu0-omc4-s24.blu0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675); Mon, 2 Dec 2013 16:59:33 -0800 X-TMN: [uYH6+nY6jRnbuCSRDB4gw1KgwSDLBwrW] X-Originating-Email: [drew@mykitchentable.net] Message-ID: Received: from [127.0.0.1] ([69.62.230.77]) by BLU0-SMTP278.phx.gbl over TLS secured channel with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675); Mon, 2 Dec 2013 16:59:31 -0800 Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2013 16:59:26 -0800 From: Drew Tomlinson User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.1.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Michael Sierchio Subject: Re: FreeBSD 9 On ESXi 5.5? References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 131202-2, 12/02/2013), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean X-OriginalArrivalTime: 03 Dec 2013 00:59:31.0238 (UTC) FILETIME=[EC97AC60:01CEEFC2] Cc: FreeBSD Questions X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 00:59:34 -0000 On 12/2/2013 4:31 PM, Michael Sierchio wrote: > On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Drew Tomlinson wrote: >> I recently purchased an HP Proliant ML310 to replace an old server that >> happily ran FBSD for 13 years before it died last month. >> >> Now because the hardware will support it, I'd like to learn about vSphere or >> ESXi or whatever they are calling it these days as we are beginning to >> migrate that way at work. Thus I would like to rebuild my FBSD box as a >> guest. >> >> My new server has 4, 1TB drives. The onboard RAID controller will only do >> mirroring or striping without parity. It will not do what I know of as >> RAID5 where parity info is spread across the disks. > Are you sure? I.e., are you sure it isn't just a driver issue? Do > you have the HP-specific distro for ESXi? The one you get from VMware > won't have the right driver for that RAID controller, for sure. Yes, I am sure. I do have the HP distro for ESXi. It seems I have to buy a Flash Back Write Cache (FWBC) module to get RAID5. >> I used to use ZFS and like the redundancy it provides. However I've googled >> and there seems to be a lot of posts about ZFS not working well in a virtual >> machine. >> >> Does anyone have any insight on this? Good idea? Bad idea that will bite >> me later? It is most important to me to have a machine that is reliable and >> just runs like my old one did than to do anything fancy. I like a raid1z >> pool because I could lose a disk and not lose data. However I do not want >> to cause problems by using it in a vm since they are so easy to restore from >> backups. > The only way to use ZFS pools in any reasonable fashion with ESXi is > to present iSCSI targets to the ESXi server from the host that has the > pools. Just my $0.02 ($0.11 adjusted for inflation). Thank for your thoughts. However I don't have a server with pools. It was my (probably bad) idea to create 4 virtual drives (one on each physical drive) in the ESXi software for the FBSD guest. Then create the ZFS pool in that FBSD guest. Cheers, Drew