Napp-it, OmniOS, ESXi installation questions

[hgeorges]

Hi,
I've had a few attempts to install the said combination, trying to settle on a home server solution. went back and forth between these and FreeNas, ZFSGuru etc. Now I came back to napp-it.

From zfsguru experience, I'm left with the idea to install zfs on a mirrored root (SSD).
Plus the option to use partitions for ZIL (mirrored), L2ARC.

I've installed OmniOS on mirrored root, but somewhere got a warning that the installation might be misaligned/not on 4k boundaries.
Question #1: Is there anything in particular to be done (with or without napp-it help) when installing omnios for partition alignment on those two datastores?
(my setup has ESXi on a USB stick, which when booted, would attach two independent datastores on two SSDs).

Question #2: for Swap, ZIL and l2arc i want to use partitions on two other SSDs (connected to a passed through SATA controller). Does Napp-it allow me to do that?
Thanks much
hg

 

[gigatexal]

I could be wrong, but your install of OMNIOS that is misaligned shouldn't be an issue. It shouldn't cause it to crawl. You can properly align your other zvols for VMs and such if needed.

 

[gea]

1.
If you install from scratch, ESXi is up and running within some minutes.
If you add the napp-it storage VM template, this is another 5 minutes;
needed setup is creating a pool and filesystems, optionally add some user.

On a complete crash, you reinstall ESXi, reinstall napp-it, import the pool, reshare
via NFS and import the VMs with the ESXi filebrowser (right mouse click to the .vmx file)
Worst case is that you need to recreate napp-it jobs and OmniOS users. If you have run a napp-it
backup job, this is no more than a copy them back.

This asumes that you do not install services to napp-it that require a compex
configuration what you should not do as this would mean that you must care
about a recovery - epecially as the system disk is basically on VMFS - not as secure
as ZFS. So the huge advantage of the napp-in-one is trouble free crash recovery but
only when you use VMs (BSD, OSX, Linux, Solaris, Windows) for all other services
stored on ZFS with snaps and versioning.

If your concern is uptime, use a cold spare clone of the systemdisk (a 30GB SSD+)
or an ESXi hardware raid or a 3,5" raid-1 enclosure for 2 x 2,5" disks.

If you want to create a ZFS boot mirror, you need two identical disks that you use as
a datastore where you create identical virtual disks that you use for OmniOS.

2.
You can enable partitioning support in napp-it menu disks, partition the disk
and use partitions for slog and l2arc but care about the requirements of an SSD
suitable for an slog like low latency, high write iops, reliability and powerloss protection.

 

[hgeorges]

Thanks both for the prompt and extensive reply!
@gea Yes, I was referring to a ZFS boot (and root vol) mirror, created on the two SSD VMFS datastores.
Then install a few additional apps and services on that volume - from what is available for omnios.
I've got the misalignment message at the installation (created my own VM). I can't give more details because it has been a while since I tested this.
Two SSDs, identical in size, presented to ESXi, two separate datastores, on each. Thought of it as an uptime insurance.
But then this is just a home setup and I'll rethink the simplicity of the recovery, as you suggested, going back to the VM template.
Thanks for pointing that out.