freeNAS running in Vsphere

[tabs]

I have installed freeNAS in a virtual machine using Vmware Vsphere(Esxi). It is running on an HP proliant N40L with 8gb ram, a 1st HD of 320gb containing Vsphere and its datastore and a second HD of 2tb.

I am following this guide:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/01/how-to-set-up-a-home-file-server-using-freenas/

But at the part on setting up the disk volumes where it says :

1. First, we have to set up our disk volumes. In the left menu, expand "Storage," then "Volumes" and select "Create Volume." You should see this screen:

I don't see any option for create volume only import volu,es, view volumes,view disks and volume manager options.

I also don't see the second 2tb hard disk in view disks although it is there in the bios and the Vsphere client app.

Why isn't freenas seeing the hard disk and why isne't there a "create volume " option?

Thanks for any help

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah, because things have changed since that guide was made. If you look in the manual you'll see that you create volumes under Volume Manager.

http://www.freenas.org/images/resources/freenas8.3.0/freenas8.3_guide.pdf

See section 3.1.4 and 6.3.3.

If FreeNAS isn;t seeing your hard drives then your hardware isn't compatible. But the N40L is a commonly used machine in these parts, so I'm sure its supported.

 

[tabs]

Yeah, when I go to volume manager there are no disks showing. I know others are using this machine to run similar setups with freeNAS so it shuoldn't be the hardware. Still no idea how to get the disks to show in order to create the volume

 

[Yell]

simple assign the drives to the virtual machine ..

check with

Code:

dmesg | grep ata

if it lists your disks (preferred with ahci)

 

[tabs]

#sorry for being thick here but how would I assign the hard drive(the one with my data files on) to the freeNAS virtual machine.?When I go into edit settings for this vmachine I can add disks but only as virtual disks.

When I SSH to the server and do dmesg|grep ata it does list both HDs, ata1 and ata2 - the second being WD red

 

[JaimieV]

You need to tell ESXi to pass the physical disk forward to the FreeNAS VM. Or make virtual disk files on the disk, pass them in.
I don't think you'll be able to virtualise the SATA interface directly as your VM store is on it.

Once you've allocated some disks somehow to the FreeNAS VM, they'll appear in the FreeNAS GUI.

 

[Yell]

I would say if you dont understand Virtualization technology and are not able to to so, skip this and use this machine only for freenas ...

Else you might want to read some (e)books about ESX(i) and follow some starter guides.

 

[tabs]

I understand the basics but you are right I probably need to do some more reading on the principles.

I have found a hack to get around the fact that local RDMs( which is what I need to set the data disks as) are not supported offficially by Vsphere Esxi but as yet have not managed to get it working on my machine.

 

[Yell]

Else you might try this:

Or make virtual disk files on the disk, pass them in.

(dont use dynamically disks, give 'em a fixed size!)

btw best practice of ZFS is to use real raw drives, so you might want to pass 'em through