VMWare and Drivepool

[ravonaf]

I tried using the search function but came up a bit short. So I thought I would ask my question here. Is there a definitive guide somewhere for installing Drivepool in a VM environment? I have ESXi running on an older box with 4 2TB SATA drives installed. Here is how I assume I need to install Drivepool. In order to add 6TB to a pool (3 2TB Drives) I assume I need to create each disk as a datastore and then create virtual drives completely filling up the datastores. Those virtual drives would then represent the 3 physical disks. I could then add all 3 virtual drives to a datapool. I then plan on adding 4 more USB drives bringing my Drivepool total up to about 20TB. I plan on using file duplication which would bring my available storage to about 10TB. Does this sound like the correct way to set this up? Thanks for the help. I literally just discovered Drivepool yesterday so I'm way behind the learning curve. 

[RobbieH]

Short story:

I mapped my drives as RDMs. 

http://blog.davidwarburton.net/2010/10/25/rdm-mapping-of-local-sata-storage-for-esxi/

I installed the client OS, then used DrivePool to attach those drives.

 

Now this only works for the one client, I have no idea if you can make the pool available to other VMs, but I doubt it.

[otispresley]

When I was on ESXi, I also did RDM.  The instructions in the above post are old and no longer necessary.  See this post for easier instructions using only the vSphere client.  Once a disk is passed through, it is only available to that one VM.  You would have to create shares for other VMs to access it.  I created an internal network for communication between VM's so that communication between them didn't have to go through the physical switch.

 

Another options is that if all your disks you want to use for DrivePool are on a separate controller from your ESXi system disks, then you can also us PCI Passthrough to pass the entire controller to the VM so it is using it natively.

 

In both of the above methods, you will not be able to take a snapshot of the VM.  If you use a backup solution like ghettoVCB, then the content of the passed through disks will not be backed up.

 

If you create datastores on all the disks, then you are locked to VMFS and cannot read these disks on a Windows machine without some software to read VMFS volumes.  With the pass through methods, all the disks will be NTFS and can be read on any Windows machine.

[RobbieH]

When I was on ESXi, I also did RDM.  The instructions in the above post are old and no longer necessary.  See this post for easier instructions using only the vSphere client.  

 

The only link I saw in there was the same link I posted. Did I miss something? I'd love to have an easier way!

 

Oops, I see it now. Thank you for pointing this out, I completely overlooked it before!