Some suggestions for Home Server Rack/Virtualization

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darkconz

Member
Jun 6, 2013
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18
Hi,

I recently purchased a Dell C6100 and I've been thinking to do some neat things with it. One of which is turn it into a 4 node virtual host. What has stumbled me is the shared storage...

I already have an 12 disk FreeNAS server white box. I want my VMs to be hosted on a SSD storage so I can get the best speed out of things. One thing I could do I guess is to add an external SAS SFF-8088 connection and have an SAS expander on the Norco 4224 with the SSDs. Is this an good approach or should I just build a new NAS storage in my Norco 4224? I am worried that my current FreeNAS 32GB host may not be good enough for the SSDs.

If I build a new standalone shared storage, what software should I put on it? FreeNAS? Or should I get a low profile LSI card with external connection and make one node a storage node as well?

For back end networking, I have that covered with a few InfiniBand cards so it will not saturate the network that quickly.

I would like to hear some feed back on my setup above and what do you guys typically do to solve this issue.
 

MiniKnight

Well-Known Member
Mar 30, 2012
3,072
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NYC
What virtualization platform are you using? Maybe use something that gives you clustered storage on the C6100.
 

Mike

Member
May 29, 2012
482
16
18
EU
I think you're already after centralised storage and not anything local. Clustered will probably give too much overhead to your likings in a setup this small?
 

darkconz

Member
Jun 6, 2013
193
15
18
Yeah, I think what I said above leans towards centralized storage. How could I set this up as local? Use 1 node as storage node while NFS mount on the other nodes?