From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Dec 3 01:39:03 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 05E55929 for ; Tue, 3 Dec 2013 01:39:03 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-oa0-f46.google.com (mail-oa0-f46.google.com [209.85.219.46]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id C33471A45 for ; Tue, 3 Dec 2013 01:39:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-oa0-f46.google.com with SMTP id o6so14246690oag.33 for ; Mon, 02 Dec 2013 17:38:56 -0800 (PST) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=c3gwpqR9GyeCk+XaLHasoKv+Z8xpWU96nNw7HsZIjA4=; b=RmcJbyBx8rOoDMG/r5EQk4qSw9dPdUFiOh9fPM7KGkH9rxwiMhrQU0RubG2nhdmbmI ww8GJFHxQitM4axeZNTs1WAo1/6pW6jx8YigFm2OOSDEKVXnwBkYToFfKDWGfe69dZbC f+5EFN9vRbpAN3rsP5pvOGUvCiWasEwR/zcYgNDabMRzYHjwG7c9dVagKEM1bgWDPZsk r1oFVh0sEKte7ydlRd+JxowoGT5LwoHpKLGP3LF0+/fbbuJCIXCC1DbvU4gJ3oVfLfiK 19YdiXaTAGvyJKkeNk+vuRJZmoNnJuFYL3p83JaaMjbpSlT1pp+OjUheTBF/EVGJgO6x B5Rg== X-Gm-Message-State: ALoCoQnKE3e/4901kAvyVDUnK4nxW9/mo6GiQr/r2co4Q+A0yrkuKUQtTg2wJylU1/Uw0sxY/mMZ MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.182.22.135 with SMTP id d7mr6248524obf.1.1386030661047; Mon, 02 Dec 2013 16:31:01 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.60.21.69 with HTTP; Mon, 2 Dec 2013 16:31:00 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2013 16:31:00 -0800 Message-ID: Subject: Re: FreeBSD 9 On ESXi 5.5? From: Michael Sierchio To: Drew Tomlinson Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 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 01:39:03 -0000 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. > 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).