FreeNAS as backup storage for PHD Virtual Esxpress / VMWARE

[Maxime F.]

Hi,

I'm actually looking at many treads related to FreeNAS working with VMWARE and I'm not sure yet on what kind of "Nic" we should had on our IBM X3400 server to connect to the FreeNAS. We're actually running 8 VM's on this ESX installation and we have 1 Gbe port for the Console and another 4 Port Gbe Intel nic for all the VM's . I think we should probably add a new NIC dedicated for backup, but what kind of nic should we choose for the IBM X3400 server and also on the FreeNAS side. I'll keep reading treads, but if you have any suggestions, let me know as welll if you have any questions, feel free to ask... ;)

Thanks,

 

[jgreco]

You pick a NIC off the VMware HCL for your ESX installation. My suggestion would be to pick up a single or dual port version of the quad you've already got, since your ESX is presumably known to work well with it.

You can pick many different ones on the FreeBSD side, but you'll have the best luck with a server-grade Intel NIC that's on the FreeBSD HCL.