iSCSI NAS Storage for your Virtual Lab?

[WebMaster]

Finally, I managed to acquire a NAS with iSCSI features for my Virtualization lab. So far, its been performing great, as expected. As I dig deeper into my VCP studies, I will explore its features in more depth.

I've written a blog about my initial experience, here:

http://www.virtualization.net/153-bu...-for-home-lab/

Do you own a NAS? Tell us about it here on the forums!

[vOSKin]

Nice article, thanks. Thecus, recently has started coming up with great products. I own a older QNAP ts-259, it works great for personal, home use.

[just hacker]

nice article
i think you use Virtual iSCSI solution like Star wind i used this software to implement virtual SAN and its work perfect with VMware ESXi Solution

[vibe666]

don't touch a thecus NAS for any reason.

i've owned a n7700 for 2 years and their support department is almost non-existent, their firmware updates are slow and disjointed with users waiting months or even years to enjoy additional features that other NAS mfg's have already added on even their most basic models and their drive compatibility is at least 18 months behind the likes of synology and qnap.

all that and it's only gotten worse in the 2 years i've been a customer, just don't go near them or you'll regret it.

[WebMaster]

Vibe666,

My experience has been different. If you are non-technical person, with little or no IT/troubleshooting experience, then it maybe that you need tech support for almost everything.

I haven't had any issues with unit I have so far and never needed tech support. If there is a problem, most likely, I will fix it on my own.

I also have a QNAP which is working fine as well!

[vibe666]

Originally Posted by WebMaster

Vibe666,

My experience has been different. If you are non-technical person, with little or no IT/troubleshooting experience, then it maybe that you need tech support for almost everything.

if that was supposed to be some sort of a dig then it was a pretty pathetic attempt so i'm going to ignore it.

Originally Posted by WebMaster

I haven't had any issues with unit I have so far and never needed tech support.

in that case i'd love to meet you because in my 17 years working in IT i don't think I've ever met anyone with a reasonable amount of experience who has never needed some kind of vendor support at some point, but i'm sure you can do just about anything without any support from anyone.

Originally Posted by WebMaster

If there is a problem, most likely, I will fix it on my own.

yes, good luck with that.

Originally Posted by WebMaster

I also have a QNAP which is working fine as well!

good job too, it'll come in handy when the N7700 fails.

[WebMaster]

Vibe,

I wasn't talking about you, I apologize if it came across that way. If Thecus was so bad, they wouldn't be in business and we all, with different setups, have different experiences. Sometimes its our own incompetence and sometimes its the vendors fault.

Personally, I don't care about support as I can handle most of the issues on my own. They make cheap products which you or any average joe can fit in his virtual lab and be able to test majority of configurations which you see in enterprise equipment.

As of Qnap, I actually have issues with that from time to time but nothing major.

Since you are so critical, why don't you start blogging on Virtualization.net? Post reviews, etc. of products you come across.

[vibe666]

apologies from here as well, i still sometimes end up overreacting to stuff online even after all these years.

my experience with thecus has included hardware (a failed sata connector in one of my drive bays) and software issues (a minor firmware update wiping out my RAID config which needed 2 weeks to get someone from high up in the thecus support chain to remotely fix as my backup was no good) as well as finding out that the eSata port on the back doesn't work with port multiplier eSata enclosures so is pretty much redundant.

this was after waiting many months for a firmware update that was supposed to fix the issue of my eSata enclosure not being visible to the N7700, when i initially logged it with the support department because they didn't at that time support 2tb drives (which afaik was only added in Feb of this year) even though the larger 3tb drives had already been out for months and were for the most part fully supported by both Synology & QNAP.

i'm actually just about to virtualise my storage entirely (and get rid of the N7700) within ESXi thanks to me buying a HP ML110 G6 and eight 2tb HDD's and most likely openfiler or something along those lines, but i'm still deciding the best way to present all of that storage to whatever SAN/NAS appliance or VM I end up using.

i've scavenged an old 8-port HW RAID controller, but there's no BBU and it doesn't want to do RAID5 at all without it and i'm not sure if a new BBU something i could pick up cheaply online for it or if i should just pay up for a new card altogether, but on a budget it's hard to justify paying more for a RAID controller for my lab server than i did for the server itself.

i've been planning this thing for months in my spare time (which isn't much with work being as busy as it is currently and a new baby just arrived), and with the 2tb DS limit in v4 of ESXi i had been half thinking about letting openfiler handle the RAID in software as even though SW RAID would normally be a pretty poor choice, openfiler actually allows you to do it pretty well by tweaking a few settings here and there to mitigate the traditional risks of SW RAID.

then ESXi v5 came out (I've had the beta for about 3 months, but although we got it running fine on a lab server at work, it kept pink screening my host at home during the install for some reason) and i'm thinking again now that a decent 8-port HW RAID card really would be a good long term investment, so i'm back to square one again.