ESXI 6.0 & Free Nas 9.1 10gig setup help

[dashpuppy]

I'm new to this FreeNAS stuff so be nice :)

I have a home lab I'm setting up and playing with, the main server is a Dell R710 running ESXI6.0 ( free edition for home )
& a spare dell computer with 8 gigs ram and a single 1tb drive ( just for testing now ) my plan is to use a pair of HP 10GB Single Port Mellanox cards in each box and create a SMB or Iscsi link path just for storage for more vm's. I have a single SFP= 10g gable to link the two machines together.

I'm looking for some guidance and step for step to get this working and tested, once i am happy im going to be upgrading the test ( dell storage ) machine to a Dell R310 with 4 x 3tb drives for more storage..

Can anyone guide me ?

First question, Do i need to setup a static ip on each card in esxi * FreeNAS? my home network starts with 172.x.x.x and i was thinking about using a 10.0.0.1 & 10.0.0.2 for the 10gig network cards single path.

 

[RichTJ99]

Hi,

I have a freenas vm as a dedicated backup of my physical freenas box.

https://b3n.org/freenas-9-3-on-vmware-esxi-6-0-guide/

I used that guide but I am not sure if that will help with the 10gig card. I would expect if you pass it through to freenas it should work if freebsd has the drivers.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Mirfster]

Iscsi link path just for storage for more vm's.

Not sure of your Server Specs, but note iSCSI is going to require more RAM, a SLOG (IMHO) and running Mirror vDevs. Also there is other caveats you need to be aware of to have it properly setup.

I have a single SFP= 10g gable to link the two machines together.

That is fine, while I do not use those cards I *think* they are natively supported.

I'm looking for some guidance and step for step to get this working and tested, once i am happy im going to be upgrading the test ( dell storage ) machine to a Dell R310 with 4 x 3tb drives for more storage..

Do yourself a favor and just use that for the initial testing. It would do you good to possibly create it more than once, so you learn it more. Besides, 8GB is going to make things look crappy and may dissuade you.

First question, Do i need to setup a static ip on each card in esxi * free nas ? my home network starts with 172.x.x.x and i was thinking about using a 10.0.0.1 & 10.0.0.2 for the 10gig network cards single path.

That is fine (I would not use .1 myself and start at .2, but that is just me), I do pretty much the exact same thing. I have both a MS Server 2012 Hyper-V and ESXi 6 U2 connecting to my FreeNAS.

 

[Mlovelace]

my home network starts with 172.x.x.x and i was thinking about using a 10.0.0.1 & 10.0.0.2 for the 10gig network cards single path.

As a small note, to be in private IP space on your network you need to use the 172.16.x.x/12 (172.16.0.1 - 172.31.255.254) address space. Of course there is also the 10.x.x.x/8 and 192.168.x.x/16 as well.

 

[dashpuppy]

Well guys i actually sat down and got it all working 100% Free nas box is on a i3 quad core 8 gigs ram a 1gig network card for management and a 10gig SFP card.
The server is the R710 with all my vm's and stuff on it, Lastnight i got the iscsi working and a 800gig iscsi hard drive mounted and threw in a few vm's to make sure it was working.

This isn't for a huge production network or anything like that, just a home setup for a few vm's and stuff.

In the next few weeks ill be grabbing a R310, stuffing 32gigs ram in it and drives, moving over my 10gig card and setting this all up again.

 

[Mlovelace]

Well guys i actually sat down and got it all working 100% Free nas box is on a i3 quad core 8 gigs ram a 1gig network card for management and a 10gig SFP card.
The server is the R710 with all my vm's and stuff on it, Lastnight i got the iscsi working and a 800gig iscsi hard drive mounted and threw in a few vm's to make sure it was working.

This isn't for a huge production network or anything like that, just a home setup for a few vm's and stuff.

In the next few weeks ill be grabbing a R310, stuffing 32gigs ram in it and drives, moving over my 10gig card and setting this all up again.

One thing to keep in mind, as I see you are licensed for the bare ESXi, is that you don't have vSphere storage APIs, so the freeNAS iSCSI VAAI will not be supported by your Host. This means you won't receive the unmap command when you delete data/VMs from the iSCSI datastore(s) (freeNAS will think the blocks are still in use). Not a big deal if you don't have highly transient data, but keep it in the back you your mind when you don't see free'd space on the NAS.

 

[dashpuppy]

One thing to keep in mind, as I see you are licensed for the bare ESXi, is that you don't have vSphere storage APIs, so the freeNAS iSCSI VAAI will not be supported by your Host. This means you won't receive the unmap command when you delete data/VMs from the iSCSI datastore(s) (freeNAS will think the blocks are still in use). Not a big deal if you don't have highly transient data, but keep it in the back you your mind when you don't see free'd space on the NAS.

Thanks for that, totally will keep that in mind.

 

[dashpuppy]

SO i have everything ready now. Now I'm planning on bying a dedicated box.. My 2 choices are :

Dell R310 with 4 3tb drives
Dell R510 with 4 3tb drives then adding more later on.

My question is, if i build a iscsi / nas box and use 4 3tb drives then want to add more can I ? Do i have to erase the whole thing add more drives ? or can i just add more along the way like Pooling..

 

[Mirfster]

My question is, if i build a iscsi / nas box and use 4 3tb drives then want to add more can I ? Do i have to erase the whole thing add more drives ? or can i just add more along the way like Pooling..

You can always add vDev(s) to a pool; just can't remove them from a pool. If you are using Mirror vDevs (Which you should be for iSCSI), it would be even easier to add another Mirror vDev. Also, you would then increase the IOPS.

 

[dashpuppy]

You can always add vDev(s) to a pool; just can't remove them from a pool. If you are using Mirror vDevs (Which you should be for iSCSI), it would be even easier to add another Mirror vDev. Also, you would then increase the IOPS.

Are you saying more smaller drives is better ?

 

[Mirfster]

Are you saying more smaller drives is better ?

No, but running Mirror vDevs is for iSCSI. ;)

 

[dashpuppy]

No, but running Mirror vDevs is for iSCSI. ;)

Basically each drive has a mirrored drive to it's self right ?

( calm down ) Im still learning & new to Freenas :) Ditched the over priced Qnap :)