Migrating a Windows 10VM from ESXi to FreeNAS 11.3.....

[diskdiddler]

Yeah pretty crazy suggestion, I know.

Anyone ever done this? Like how bad would the VM run? Is it even possible to do it simply and easily? I obviously have root access to both.
Anyone us a Windows 10 VM under Bhyve as their daily driver? (my Windows 10 VM under ESX is my daily driver "PC" believe it or not, I'm typing this post from it)

 

[diskdiddler]

It's certainly not easy to present a disk for it.

 

[artlessknave]

why? you will most likely have an easier time with a fresh install. like hours and hours less work and frustation, so unless you are doing this as an educational exercise...I wouldn't do it at all. if its for giggles though go nuts I guess, but it seems like a pure waste of time.

 

[diskdiddler]

Let's imagine it's my only option for retaining a VM I'm fond of - I imagine I could V2V or convert the image to RAW and DD it in (I've done that successfully now!)

That being said, I can't get a NEW install working, due to the VirtIO drivers and AHCI etc- it's kind of weird, is there a defacto guide for creating a new, Windows 10 VM in FreeNAS?

 

[artlessknave]

tbh in my experience bhyve is...janky. you cant use virtIO till you install drivers first of all, and requires you to be installed and running first. i can't remember if the bhyve windows I have was following a guide or if i just installed it. i do remember having issues but not how I got passed them.

i find the idea of being "fond" of any windows install...strange. maybe a bit creepy. did you diddle its disks?

 

[diskdiddler]

I am an ex Windows guy, who went from a Desktop PC, to a laptop RDP into PC, to RDP into a VM on adequate hardware.

I think I am ok, migrating from my old classic build to a new one, but I do need that new one up and running.

Is Bhyve improving?

 

[artlessknave]

Is Bhyve improving?

it functions but weird stuff tends to occur, for example, i often cannot reboot the windows VM, it just fails, silently as far as i can tell, to boot afterwards.

 

[diskdiddler]

I saw a few posts like that but got the impression VirtIO drivers will fix this? Do you use them.

 

[artlessknave]

it looks like i got the virtIO NIC to work but not the disk; i think every time i tried to get it to boot with virtIO it failed, and I haven't really bothered to try anymore.

 

[diskdiddler]

Ok so, perhaps I'm nutty, but I am (fairly) sure that I saw VirtIO disk drivers (you can configure the disk on the VM to be VirtIO) In fact I can't figure out how to install this yet. I'm reluctant to mount not 1 but 2 ISOs, and one of them being from 2017.

 

[diskdiddler]

Ok so I've managed to locate an ISO and use it, I now have a red hat based disk controller.

I'm curious if these drivers are regularly updated and therefore increase performance.




I'm also curious if there are other drivers which may assist in the performance of the system? Almost like a VMWare tools kind of situation?


The performance is ok, it's not amazing but it's ok.