Will this work for Passthrough?

[smccloud]

In planning my next server build I am planning on virtualizing my pfSense firewall, Linux VM for my UniFi controller/CrashPlan/Plex/PlexConnect/whatever, a CentOS VM for PBX In A Flash & NAS4Free (or equivalent) for storage. The NAS4Free VM will export a stripped mirror of 320GB HDDs for the other VM. My question is, if I put a 4 port NIC like this one in the server, what are the chances I can pass 2 ports to the pfSense VM and use the other two ports for ESXi (planning on passing through the two onboard i210 NICs to the storage VM).

 

[ehorn]

Its an "all in one"... Why do you feel you need to paassthrough nics?

Nics can be managed with vswitch. 1 for wan, rest for uplinks and mgmt.

The NAS Storage controller is what you will want to passthrough. Otherwise performance will be dismal.

 

[smccloud]

Because I've had issues with pfSense when not passing a NIC through. Plus I want the ability to team NICs in another VM I'll be creating.

 

[ehorn]

What kind of issues?

 

[smccloud]

Performance issues mostly. Plus some issues with Charter

 

[ehorn]

Hmm. I have setup pfsense and sophos with Intel nics and humble procs/memory settings with ips rules, et all and have never have performance issues using vswitches. The performance and latency was very near native. Certainly acceptable.

Now storage... That never met my expectations by simply sharing disks to the vm. The only way I saw close to native performance and stability was passing through a PCI controller.

Best wishes with your setup.