All-in-one server using Hyper-V

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Navy_BOFH

Active Member
Aug 2, 2013
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Hello all,

I lurk here on the regular and on /r/homelab on reddit to gain new insight into my lab... this is one time I think I need to ask for help though.

I currently have a Dell R710 that has dual L5639, 48Gb RAM, PERC H710, and I currently have 2x Intel 520 SSDs, and 5x WD Se 3Tb drives (4 in use) in the server. I have been seeing my RAID5 crawling like a slug over gigabit ethernet with write cache enabled at around 10MB/s but since the server is always in use, have never been able to correct it.

Currently ESXI boots off USB, with pfSense, Windows 2012 R2, and a Windows 7 VM running off the SSDs in RAID1. The media storage is the RAID5, which was RDM straight to the Server 2012 VM which shares it over SMB.

For my newest revision, I bought a Sonnet Tempo PCIe SSD adapter which I will use to add my VM storage SSD internal to the case, allowing me to free up the other 2 hotswap bays. I will add my 5th drive in, and hopefully find a 6th on sale. My thought was to replace pfSense with Sophos UTM, since pfSense 2.2 has not been finalized, still run my Server 2012 R2 VM, and another Windows 7 or Ubuntu VM... which is where my Plex server runs (made it easy to auto-login to the networked drive and auto-load Plex).

Should I be looking into FreeNAS to share up my data storage this time over NFS or iSCSI on a virtual switch? Would Windows Storage Spaces be an acceptable substitute? Would adding an SSD cache drive to either setup help performance in the long run?
 

Biren78

Active Member
Jan 16, 2013
550
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@Navy_BOFH would you mind following up with your experiences on the Sonnet card?

I think your FreeNAS is an idea. WSS might be an option, especially since you run so much Windows.

I'd also think about using just a linux raid system. For what you are doing, I'd have a SSD cache drive. They are cheap these days.
 

HellDiverUK

Active Member
Jul 16, 2014
290
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Storage Spaces is a bit crap, unless you use tiering and add a SSD on to the pool. You won't get much more than 40MB/s write unless you do.
 

Navy_BOFH

Active Member
Aug 2, 2013
179
74
28
@Navy_BOFH would you mind following up with your experiences on the Sonnet card?

I think your FreeNAS is an idea. WSS might be an option, especially since you run so much Windows.

I'd also think about using just a linux raid system. For what you are doing, I'd have a SSD cache drive. They are cheap these days.
Well after about 4-5 hours of struggling, I figured out the trick to the Sonnet Tempo SSD card I bought. From the factory, it is sent with a combination BIOS/EFI ROM on it to option boot. With the Dell R710, I thought I would have to use UEFI since that is how most PCIe SSDs need to be loaded at boot in the server. However, once I changed the system over to UEFI, it would hang at UEFI Initialization whenever the card was in the system. Bringing the system back to BIOS, clearing the NVRAM, and booting allowed the system to boot, but the card was not recognized as a boot device in BIOS. Windows Installer would see the drive(s) but not allow you to install on them.

On the company website, however, there is a version 1.0 firmware flash utility for those of us having issues with the card. It allows you to 1) install EFI only ROM, 2) re-flash the combination ROM, or 3) load a BIOS only ROM. I chose option 3 and upon reboot the server found it as a generic SATA controller and detected both my Intel 520 SSDs. I was then able to change my boot settings and load Hyper-V without issues.


Now - the other issue I have is that loading Hyper-V has been a pain in the sense of getting my adapters named right (NICs 1-4 show up as 42-45), with the ports not being in any sensible order... so getting pfSense or Sophos running has been a task. I am about to throw in the towel and go back to ESXI with a modification to the drivers to allow running the SATA card... but after spending close to 8 hours on the server yesterday and only getting Hyper-V core installed... I am running out of patience with it.
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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Now - the other issue I have is that loading Hyper-V has been a pain in the sense of getting my adapters named right (NICs 1-4 show up as 42-45), with the ports not being in any sensible order... so getting pfSense or Sophos running has been a task. I am about to throw in the towel and go back to ESXI with a modification to the drivers to allow running the SATA card... but after spending close to 8 hours on the server yesterday and only getting Hyper-V core installed... I am running out of patience with it.
Just a quick tip/ idea. I would enable remote desktop, then just have 1 cable plugged in and start numbering. Honestly, once everything is setup it is really easy.
 

Navy_BOFH

Active Member
Aug 2, 2013
179
74
28
Just a quick tip/ idea. I would enable remote desktop, then just have 1 cable plugged in and start numbering. Honestly, once everything is setup it is really easy.
That is probably what I would have to do next.

My question now is: what is the REAL difference between Server 2012 and Hyper-V 2012? I installed Server 2012 R2 with GUI last night just to make sure all my hardware was showing up as needed. However, once that was installed I realized I was just a few tasks away from installing Hyper-V and AD services, and running everything (nearly) as before. Now my big question would be: how hard would it be to run my pfSense or Sophos UTM VM and a FreeNAS/Xpenology VM inside Server 2012 instead of a bare metal hypervisor?
 

Mike

Member
May 29, 2012
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None. The Hyper-v role will transform your current setup in one where your Windows 'host' will be essentially a guest itself, with the hyper-v hypervisor becoming the host. This is a bare metal hypervisor, with a pretty heavy priviliged OS on top of it.
 

PigLover

Moderator
Jan 26, 2011
3,184
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My question now is: what is the REAL difference between Server 2012 and Hyper-V 2012? I installed Server 2012 R2 with GUI last night just to make sure all my hardware was showing up as needed. However, once that was installed I realized I was just a few tasks away from installing Hyper-V and AD services, and running everything (nearly) as before. Now my big question would be: how hard would it be to run my pfSense or Sophos UTM VM and a FreeNAS/Xpenology VM inside Server 2012 instead of a bare metal hypervisor?
There is no difference. Literally - none at all. Hyper-V Server (2008/2012/2012R2) IS Windows Server running in the "core" mode (no GUI). In both Server 2012 and Hyper-V Server you get virtualization by running the Hyper-V "role".

The only difference between Server 2012 R2 and Hyper-V 2012 R2 is that most of the server "roles" are restricted form begin installed on the Hyper-V build.