Best storage server OS for virtualization

[nhubbard]

New to the forums, but I have noticed a lot of you are running OpenIndiana. Right now I am running a i7-3550K with 32GB of ram. Running centos 6 with software RAID10 (8X3 TB drives). I have two basic SATA III 4 port cards and have the drives in the mirrors on separate cards. I like having this seperation so that if one card fails I don't lose any of my data. Seems to run without to many problems but setting up two new virtualization servers. Will run either ESXi or ProxMox, still testing. I'm looking for some thing that will give me either iSCSI with multipath or NFS for a storage solution.

I have a decent amount of media that I do not want to lose, which is why I'm running in a RAID 10. I have seen/heard good things about ZFS but have zero experience with it. I was wondering use or recommend for my setup.

If you need more information about my setup let me know.

 

[gea]

New to the forums, but I have noticed a lot of you are running OpenIndiana. Right now I am running a i7-3550K with 32GB of ram. Running centos 6 with software RAID10 (8X3 TB drives). I have two basic SATA III 4 port cards and have the drives in the mirrors on separate cards. I like having this seperation so that if one card fails I don't lose any of my data. Seems to run without to many problems but setting up two new virtualization servers. Will run either ESXi or ProxMox, still testing. I'm looking for some thing that will give me either iSCSI with multipath or NFS for a storage solution.

I have a decent amount of media that I do not want to lose, which is why I'm running in a RAID 10. I have seen/heard good things about ZFS but have zero experience with it. I was wondering use or recommend for my setup.

If you need more information about my setup let me know.

"Best" is relative and depends on needs
ESXi + OI + NFS (two boxes or all-in-one) is fast, often used, well tested and works without hassles out of the box.

 

[sotech]

"Best" is relative and depends on needs
ESXi + OI + NFS (two boxes or all-in-one) is fast, often used, well tested and works without hassles out of the box.

Not to mention just how useful adding napp-it to OI is when learning ZFS - makes everything very easy, web-based ZFS management. It's a very good way to start.

 

[nhubbard]

Thanks for the information guys. I was planning on dedicated a box to the OS I went with, so in this case OI, and then using the two other servers to access it over NFS or possibly even iSCSI depending on performance. This weekend should be busy as I start trying out all the different options.