Mount IScsi as a datastore or Straight to VM

[cgtechuk]

Hi all,

One of the VMs (Linux) has a massive storage requirement (NAS for media files) so I am looking to provision this onto a NAS device and mount it instead of hosting it locally on the ESXi machine like it currently is.

Now the options I think I have are:

a) Mount the iSCSI as a datastore in VMWare and then attach a disk to the Virtual Machine

b) Mount the iSCSI drive direct from the VM and store the individual files there instead of the Datastore file?

What is the best for performance and reliability? Files are all media files like TV Shows etc

Is there any benefit to one over the other?

TLR what is better mounting an IScsi disk straight to a VM or to ESXi and use it as a drive

 

[CosmoJoe]

I feel it gives you more flexibility to mount the LUN via initiator within the VM. It depends on your environment.

In my home lab I use my Synology to present iSCSI directly to the VM for things like failover clustering or other scenarios where you need shared storage. At my previous job, we also attached LUNs via guest iSCSI initiator and it worked just fine.

 

[vBuild2BAU]

Please oh please. I am a VMware admin. Please do it at OS level. Then it doesn't need to be my problem!

 

[realtomatoes]

Please oh please. I am a VMware admin. Please do it at OS level. Then it doesn't need to be my problem!

amen, to that.

 

[DaveBC]

How about mounting it by NFS to your NAS? If it's media files you shouldn't need to present block level to your VM.