Hi All
For a year I have been using a Windows box for my shared iSCSI storage using all flash (SATA) drives and 10Gb SFP+ for networking. I was using Starwinds Virtual SAN but since the license expired Starwinds won't renew it (even for a home lab). I've had so many issues with this setup that I am kind of glad the license wasn't renewed so I'm looking for a replacement for the shared iSCSI storage. I'm open to ideas!
So I have storage vMotioned all my VMs to temporary local SSD storage in my 3 hosts. I have about 35 VMs that use around 1TB of disk space. Not having shared storage is just painful and you lose HA/DRS.
To be honest I'm overwhelmed with all the storage options but I have narrowed it down to these 3 so far:
1) Buy a Synology (like the DS3018xs or DS3617xs) and fit the unit with a dual port 10Gb NIC - pricey but convenient and I'm assuming more stable than what I am used to
2) Use VMware vSAN (all flash NVMe) - would be great but trying to find affordable AND compatible cache AND capacity tier drives seems tricky
3) Build a new storage server based on all flash NVMe storage and Supermicro - not sure if this is possible but can you RAID NVMe SSDs yet? And what NAS/SAN software to use for iSCSI?
10Gb is a must as is an all flash setup (perferably with NVMe SSDs). I have 2 Supermicro 5028D-TN4T servers and a custom built Supermicro X10SL7-F based server. I have 4 Samsung SM863 480GB drives, 2 Samsung Pro 850 512GB and two Samsung 960 EVO 250GB NVMe drives.
Hope the forum can help me make the right decision for my home labs storage to take it to the next level ;-)
For a year I have been using a Windows box for my shared iSCSI storage using all flash (SATA) drives and 10Gb SFP+ for networking. I was using Starwinds Virtual SAN but since the license expired Starwinds won't renew it (even for a home lab). I've had so many issues with this setup that I am kind of glad the license wasn't renewed so I'm looking for a replacement for the shared iSCSI storage. I'm open to ideas!
So I have storage vMotioned all my VMs to temporary local SSD storage in my 3 hosts. I have about 35 VMs that use around 1TB of disk space. Not having shared storage is just painful and you lose HA/DRS.
To be honest I'm overwhelmed with all the storage options but I have narrowed it down to these 3 so far:
1) Buy a Synology (like the DS3018xs or DS3617xs) and fit the unit with a dual port 10Gb NIC - pricey but convenient and I'm assuming more stable than what I am used to
2) Use VMware vSAN (all flash NVMe) - would be great but trying to find affordable AND compatible cache AND capacity tier drives seems tricky
3) Build a new storage server based on all flash NVMe storage and Supermicro - not sure if this is possible but can you RAID NVMe SSDs yet? And what NAS/SAN software to use for iSCSI?
10Gb is a must as is an all flash setup (perferably with NVMe SSDs). I have 2 Supermicro 5028D-TN4T servers and a custom built Supermicro X10SL7-F based server. I have 4 Samsung SM863 480GB drives, 2 Samsung Pro 850 512GB and two Samsung 960 EVO 250GB NVMe drives.
Hope the forum can help me make the right decision for my home labs storage to take it to the next level ;-)