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vmWare ESXi 4.1 >
Hi,
What are your (Netgear, vmware and the community) recommendations when it comes to choosing NFS or iSCSI as storage for vmWare virtual machines on a ReadyNAS (3100)?
My intentions with my setup is to store some of my business critical VM's on this ReadyNAS so we can start utilizing vMotion. I will also be using vmWare Datarecovery as a backup solution. The backup store, should it be NFS or iSCSI? I'll also be using the Replicate feature in the ReadyNAS to transfer all my backups to a remote (off-site) readynas.
So what are you guys running, NFS or iSCSI? Why have you chosen NFS over iSCSI or vice versa?
How should a perfect/safe ReadyNAS and vmWare setup look like?
Regards,
Anders
What are your (Netgear, vmware and the community) recommendations when it comes to choosing NFS or iSCSI as storage for vmWare virtual machines on a ReadyNAS (3100)?
My intentions with my setup is to store some of my business critical VM's on this ReadyNAS so we can start utilizing vMotion. I will also be using vmWare Datarecovery as a backup solution. The backup store, should it be NFS or iSCSI? I'll also be using the Replicate feature in the ReadyNAS to transfer all my backups to a remote (off-site) readynas.
So what are you guys running, NFS or iSCSI? Why have you chosen NFS over iSCSI or vice versa?
How should a perfect/safe ReadyNAS and vmWare setup look like?
Regards,
Anders
4 Replies
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- Anders - NFS is the protocol of choice. Much simpler, maybe faster, and it makes managing VMs as easy as browsing files. There are other posts that elaborate on the best configuration - look for the Jedi named Mace Windoo and the member named VMColonel.
- Thanks for the response, I read the OP's question with a good bit of interest as I'm doing the same thing right now. To be clear, the simplest and best method for connecting VMware ESXi to a business class ReadyNAS is NFS, not iSCSI? Are the VM's themselves responsive when executed off an NFS share? Even a Sparc based unit (NV+ or 1100)? Any gotchas with NFS and the vers of hypervisor or the FW vers of the ReadyNAS?
Thanks! - IMHO, yes. The call ususally is made by the admin - if yo uare a *NIX guy, you pick NFS; Windows picks iSCSI. The most elegant way is NFS and it works on all ReadyNAS products. Sparc will be WAY slower than the modern x86 stuff, but if you just want backup or tier 2 VMs they'd work fine.
The new vSphere 5 test from VMware is a lot more complicated that it used to be, and few <$25K vendors are iSCSI certified (and none in a meaningful way, i.e. with SATA drives not SSDs). Another reason to go with NFS. ahpsi wrote: Thanks for the response, I read the OP's question with a good bit of interest as I'm doing the same thing right now. To be clear, the simplest and best method for connecting VMware ESXi to a business class ReadyNAS is NFS, not iSCSI? Are the VM's themselves responsive when executed off an NFS share? Even a Sparc based unit (NV+ or 1100)? Any gotchas with NFS and the vers of hypervisor or the FW vers of the ReadyNAS?
Thanks!
Hi. We never really used iSCSI over NAS but what is its primary disadvantage why everybody else are not running them?
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