Server 2012 Essential connect to ZFS NAS

[tubs-ffm]

Hello,

im my home environment first I was running a ZFS NAS (napp-it) on bare metal. Later I extended it to run the ZFS NAS on ESXi with pass-through of the ZFS drives. This gave me the possibility also to run some small VMs on the same hardware. Now I upgraded the hardware what gave me the possibility to explore the trial Version of Windows Server 2012 R2 Essential running as VM together with the ZVS NAS. Having napp-it integrated in the Active Directory gives a quite comfortable system.

But the Server Folders of WSE 2012 R2 are limited to local discs only. At least I could not figure out how to map a ZFS share to be used by Server Folders. The only way seems to be to use iSCSI. Is this right?

Now I am asking myself if the virtualized ZFS NAS with RAID-Z still makes sense or if I should use directly the disks as Windows "Storage Spaces" instead?
My original intention was to use the WSE connection to the NAS for server, client and VM backups. All SMB Shares I wanted access directly on the ZFS NAS.

Tubs

 

[sjg]

Hello,

But the Server Folders of WSE 2012 R2 are limited to local discs only.

Tubs

That's my understanding.

Hello,

The only way seems to be to use iSCSI. Is this right?

Tubs

I believe so. It isn't hard to configure if you find good instructions. There is a fair amount of detail to get correct, but it's quite doable.

I've been using it for some months. I've redirected some of the Essentials server folders to the Synology NAS over iSCSI and it has worked seamlessly. Had I known how well it works, I would have worked this configuration into my server design from the start.

Steve