Hello,
I'm considering a test build and would like some input. My hope is that I can build a FreeNAS box with fast disk access, bind that to a 10GB link which connects an ESXI box. The ESXi box Guests then run via iSCSI. This is a mock up for a production deployment. The final ESXi Guests are rather small, 250GB in total size for Windows OS and DB.
Test FreeNAS hardware
* HP Z420 e5-2670 16GB
* (2) 1TB NVMe drives, added to PCI-E cards since the mobo has no NVMe
* Intel X540-T2 10GB NIC
Test ESXi hardware
* HP Z420 e5-2670 64GB
* Intel X540-T2 10GB NIC
I understand FreeNAS supports virtualization now. The big picture I'm testing is can I attach multiple ESXI Hosts to the FreeNAS box. Consolidating everything to one box is not the objective. Right now my ESXi boxes have internal HDDs in RAID1 going to old (but speed matching) LSI 9260 controllers. Would I get any kind of speed boost from the NVMe/SSD drives and the 10GB link? The CPU in the ESXi boxes seem lightly tasked which makes me wonder about disk speed being the current limiting factor.
Thanks for your insights :)
I'm considering a test build and would like some input. My hope is that I can build a FreeNAS box with fast disk access, bind that to a 10GB link which connects an ESXI box. The ESXi box Guests then run via iSCSI. This is a mock up for a production deployment. The final ESXi Guests are rather small, 250GB in total size for Windows OS and DB.
Test FreeNAS hardware
* HP Z420 e5-2670 16GB
* (2) 1TB NVMe drives, added to PCI-E cards since the mobo has no NVMe
* Intel X540-T2 10GB NIC
Test ESXi hardware
* HP Z420 e5-2670 64GB
* Intel X540-T2 10GB NIC
I understand FreeNAS supports virtualization now. The big picture I'm testing is can I attach multiple ESXI Hosts to the FreeNAS box. Consolidating everything to one box is not the objective. Right now my ESXi boxes have internal HDDs in RAID1 going to old (but speed matching) LSI 9260 controllers. Would I get any kind of speed boost from the NVMe/SSD drives and the 10GB link? The CPU in the ESXi boxes seem lightly tasked which makes me wonder about disk speed being the current limiting factor.
Thanks for your insights :)
