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ESXi Build With 16.568 TB, 16 GB RAM, 6 core CPU - Page 2

post #31 of 45
5/9/13 at 1:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Puwaha View Post

. . . .

I am with the rest of you, VMware esxi is awesome. Just make sure you get compatible hardware. I run a VM as my router as well, but I like IPFire. It was able to keep up with my 50Mb/s fiber connection. I also run a PIAF VM for free VOIP home phone action through Google Voice. Then another VM running Windows 7 to serve up cable card action to a couple of extenders for the kids. An Ubuntu VM to serve as an OpenVPN gateway so that the in-laws can stream my media collection. And finally a WHS v1 VM to offload tv recordings and provide backups. All this running on a cheapo Sempron processor and 8GB of RAM!

Do you have a build thread for this setup ?

If not could you describe the component pieces of this setup ?

Which motherboard, which CPU, which SATA JBOD card, any other cards, etc ?

Sounds like a very efficient setup. When did you assemble and get it running, and which version of VMware ?

Thanks
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post #32 of 45
5/10/13 at 6:28am
Hey Bryan, can you give me some details on how you set FlexRAID up in this build?

I got my hardware wednesday:

Mobo: ASRock 970 Extreme4 Socket AM3+ 970 ATX AMD Motherboard $99.99 -$40.00 CPU Bundle
CPU: FX 8320 Black Edition 3.5GHz Eight-Core $139.99
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800) CL9 $99.99
SSD: Samsung 120GB 840

As my WHS currently has 6 drives in the FlexRAID array, plus another outside it and the OS drive, I'm going to need more SATA ports than exist on the board. So installed 2 Monoprice SATA II PCI-x cards I hada (SIL 3132) which apparently are supported, and hooked up an extra 750GB drive to one. ESXi recognizes the drive just fine.

I set up ESXi 5.1, which was remarkably easy and figured out how to create a WM (took me a bit to figure out that I could not install the OS from a USB drive).

As a test, I just set up a WM with Win7, it worked. Next I tried to pass the 750GB drive to it.... and I'm stuck.

After fiddling around a bit, it seems that you can't pass a single drive to a WM, you either have to created a virtual disk on it or pass the entire controller. Is that correct? I obviously can pass the two SIL 3132s, but that only gives me 4 drives. I could add two more cards, but now I'm taking up 4 of the 5 PCI-x slots (I could get a 4 port card I suppose, or two).

So Bryan, are you still using FlexRAID? If so, how did you set it up? Thanks!
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post #33 of 45
5/10/13 at 6:48am
Thread Starter 
The secret is the IBM M1015 card. I pass the entire card through and it gives direct access to up to 8 SATA drives. One solution in your case might be to pass through one of the on board SATA controllers since the board has at least two different ones. Drives connected to one would be used as datastores and drives connected to the other would be passed through as PCI devices to WHS.

There is also a setting in the BIOS that you need to ensure is enabled to proper allow passthrough, I can't remember it off the top of my head but google could help.

You can install the OS from a USB drive. You either attach it to the host or guest and open the VM console. One trick is under Edit Settings (for the VM), Options, Advanced, Boot Options, select Force BIOS Setup check box. This will boot to the BIOS so you can have plenty of time to attached your discs because those options are grayed out when the VM is off. Then along the top of the console you can attach USB devices or mount DVD or ISO files. I've actually mounted an ISO stored an a VM server to install another VM. Once mounted you can adjust your boot order and restart from the BIOS.
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post #34 of 45
5/10/13 at 6:54am
Thanks, I'll check out that card. I do remember that you had to do something in the BIOS.

I was able to mount an ISO from my current WHS build to install the VM OS, but even when I went into the Bios, despite having the USB plugged in and passing it through, the BIOS boot options never showed a USB device as an option for booting.
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post #35 of 45
5/10/13 at 8:02am
Looked at that card. Am I correct in thinking that you have two cables that come out and each cable hooks up to 4 drives? (and looks like those cables are seperate).
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post #36 of 45
5/10/13 at 10:23am
Thread Starter 
Yes. You need an SAS cable that has four SATA connectors. So two SAS ports equals eight SATA drives. Here is the exact cable(s) that I'm using: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001L9DU88/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1

There are plenty of posts here detailing how to flash that card to an LSI card in IT mode for direct passthrough of the connected drives. $90 gets you a $250 card after flashing.
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post #37 of 45
5/10/13 at 10:32am
Where do you see the card for $90? The only one I've seen was on eBay and was reconditioned.

So direct pass through of the drives after flashing is different than passing the whole card through?

Founds some good links online to flash this thing, looks reasonably straight forward (famous last words!)

Thanks a lot for your help!
Edited by ncarty97 - 5/10/13 at 10:51am
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post #38 of 45
5/10/13 at 10:50am
Thread Starter 
You are looking for the reconditioned cards. They are server pulls. A lot of servers ship with those as default and companies take them out and put in their higher end RAID cards. The pulls make it back to the marketplace for about $90.

Flashing the card to IT mode allows the drives to pass directly to the motherboard and removes any RAID modes. This does away with any overhead that the card had in stock M1015 mode and makes it just a HBA best for FlexRAID.

http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/

That has nothing to do with the ESXi passthrough other than you'll want it flashed as a HBA in this case as well.
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post #39 of 45
5/10/13 at 10:53am
Awesome. Thanks a lot!
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post #40 of 45
5/10/13 at 11:22am
Found a serversupply place not far from me that has the card. $125, but it has the full height bracket (best price I found on eBay was $94 + 15 for the bracket) and they say it is new. Unfortunately not open on the weekends though so will have to wait until Monday.
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post #41 of 45
5/10/13 at 1:21pm
Thread Starter 
Now you have time to figure out how to flash the card and buy the SAS cables.
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post #42 of 45
5/12/13 at 9:19am
It's not terribly hard to flash
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post #43 of 45
5/12/13 at 9:44am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

It's not terribly hard to flash

True, it just took you about five pages in that thread...
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post #44 of 45
5/12/13 at 11:04am
Lol. It's adventurous. tongue.gif

My advice is just use the right motherboard the first time and you won't have any issue.
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post #45 of 45
5/13/13 at 7:21am
Is there any difference between the different models of this card?

The place near me, serversupply.com, has a bunch different listed. Some are 'bulk new' and others 'clean tested', and some have low profile brackets while others have regular brackets, but none of those difference seem to be indicative of the different prices I see. The lowest is $110 and the highest $170. They have what seem like model or serial numbers though, like 46M0862 or 46M0831 or SAS9220-8I. Any difference between those that anyone knows?

EDIT - Nevermind, found the other thread that said just get the cheapest!
Edited by ncarty97 - 5/13/13 at 7:31am
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