Hey all,
I need more capacity and performance on my home NAS and thought the NAS setup @gea advocated for in another thread was interesting, so I'm converting my bare metal Server 2016 + ReFS storage space to ZFS on a storage-only OS (haven't decided which OS) virtualized on ESXi. I'll have a few other ESXi VMs for random things that I do (e.g. Minecraft server, Windows VM to manage my blu-ray collection, etc). I've been doing some reading and am not sure my data migration plan is sound.
I have an X10SDV-7tp4f Supermicro Xeon-D board with a Broadcom 2116 SW controller w/ 4 SAS ports. My storage space has 8 HDs (4x3TB + 4x6TB). I have no way to migrate the data off of the Storage Space and onto the ZFS volume without running them concurrently, and I can't run them concurrently if I passthrough the entire SATA controller of my motherboard to the ZFS guest. I need to (at least temporarily):
* Convert my bare-metal Server 2016 installation to an ESXi VM
* Pass through 8 drives to Windows running on ESXi using RDM
* Pass through whatever HDs I buy for my ZFS volume to the ZFS guest using RDM
* Copy all the data over to ZFS
* Switch to passing through the entire SATA controller to the ZFS guest
* Re-purpose the 8 HDs I was using for the Storage Space
Is this sound? Some questions:
* Is using RDM + ZFS bad in any way other than performance? Is it an acceptable way of running ZFS just for the duration of my data migration? Everyone says to pass through the controller but there's not a lot of info on whether RDM is actually acceptable.
* Will the ZFS guest see the hard drives after I convert from RDM to SATA-controller-passthrough? Or will the drives be different in some way that will make it not see the volume?
I haven't 100% decided on what OS and HD setup to use on the ZFS side because I'm still planning on how exactly to do the data migration, so I'm flexible on what hardware I buy for that.
I need more capacity and performance on my home NAS and thought the NAS setup @gea advocated for in another thread was interesting, so I'm converting my bare metal Server 2016 + ReFS storage space to ZFS on a storage-only OS (haven't decided which OS) virtualized on ESXi. I'll have a few other ESXi VMs for random things that I do (e.g. Minecraft server, Windows VM to manage my blu-ray collection, etc). I've been doing some reading and am not sure my data migration plan is sound.
I have an X10SDV-7tp4f Supermicro Xeon-D board with a Broadcom 2116 SW controller w/ 4 SAS ports. My storage space has 8 HDs (4x3TB + 4x6TB). I have no way to migrate the data off of the Storage Space and onto the ZFS volume without running them concurrently, and I can't run them concurrently if I passthrough the entire SATA controller of my motherboard to the ZFS guest. I need to (at least temporarily):
* Convert my bare-metal Server 2016 installation to an ESXi VM
* Pass through 8 drives to Windows running on ESXi using RDM
* Pass through whatever HDs I buy for my ZFS volume to the ZFS guest using RDM
* Copy all the data over to ZFS
* Switch to passing through the entire SATA controller to the ZFS guest
* Re-purpose the 8 HDs I was using for the Storage Space
Is this sound? Some questions:
* Is using RDM + ZFS bad in any way other than performance? Is it an acceptable way of running ZFS just for the duration of my data migration? Everyone says to pass through the controller but there's not a lot of info on whether RDM is actually acceptable.
* Will the ZFS guest see the hard drives after I convert from RDM to SATA-controller-passthrough? Or will the drives be different in some way that will make it not see the volume?
I haven't 100% decided on what OS and HD setup to use on the ZFS side because I'm still planning on how exactly to do the data migration, so I'm flexible on what hardware I buy for that.
