I'd like to build a NAS/SAN/VM host and am really grateful for all the collected knowledge I've seen here. Already I think I'll be able to avoid some fatal mistakes (e.g., getting a MB/CPU without VT-d support).
I'm developing my overall requirements, but essentially need a quiet, 4-6TB NAS/SAN/VM host. Primary usage will be for media serving to a couple of clients and light VM hosting.
Is the current thinking to use ESXi on the bare metal, pass through the disk controller directly to OI, run OI as a VM and share back the zfs storage as iSCSI (or NFS I suppose) to the VMs?
Or is it "better" to run OI on the bare metal and use Virtualbox on top of OI? Better meaning more stable/faster/easier to maintain/etc....
Any other hypervisors that should be considered? I've worked with Xen in the past and it wasn't the friendliest... I'd prefer an all open source solution, but ESXi looks like the best choice at this point.
I'm developing my overall requirements, but essentially need a quiet, 4-6TB NAS/SAN/VM host. Primary usage will be for media serving to a couple of clients and light VM hosting.
Is the current thinking to use ESXi on the bare metal, pass through the disk controller directly to OI, run OI as a VM and share back the zfs storage as iSCSI (or NFS I suppose) to the VMs?
Or is it "better" to run OI on the bare metal and use Virtualbox on top of OI? Better meaning more stable/faster/easier to maintain/etc....
Any other hypervisors that should be considered? I've worked with Xen in the past and it wasn't the friendliest... I'd prefer an all open source solution, but ESXi looks like the best choice at this point.