I've very happily been running W2K12 and Stablebit Drivepool/Scanner for years. I do run 3 to 5 Hyper-V VMs at times for various activities.
I'm upgrading, and I am also rebuilding those VMs (moving mostly to Linux). But, Stablebit is 100% Windows. So, I need to keep a Windows machine around.
I'd like to use ESXi hypervisor on this new build; but, I have a few advanced concerns about running Stablebit Drivepool/scanner in a VM and passing the disks through.
HBA is an LSA9211-8i flashed to IT mode, passing SMART. The SAS/SATA backplane is an LSI Expander, that scales up to the 24 drive bays I'll have. I have verified SMART passes all the way through the Expander, through the HBA, to the OS (with the right drivers that is).
I must have HDD spin down functional from the Windows VM w/StableBit DrivePool/Scanner. Currently I just have it set in the Power Options and it works (with the hacked HBA driver).
I plan on running up to 4 Nvidia/AMD GPUs off and on at times for various CUDA and number crunching (FAH, crypto/cracking, Tor, etc). Plan on passing through these to a Linux OS of choice.
Some of the VMs IO operations are Disk I/O Intensive. They will have dedicated onboard PCH drives for those tasks, not connected to the HBA.
Plex Media Server on the same VM as DrivePool (because of the files/library change detection)
Note, PMS will need as many vCPUs as possible and will get the highest priority CPU access over all other VMs. Stablebit gets to come along with on the priority ride.
One VM will be a dedicated NZBs VM (copies 10s of GBs per day over to the Windows VM w/DrivePool on it - most likely over a network IP (loopback I hope)).
Does Drivepool/Scanner live happily in an ESXi Windows VM with passthrough disks?
Do I pass the HBA device through to the Windows VM, in order to get all the HDDs and SMART to show up? DrivePool will be the only thing using the HBA device. Or, do I pass each individual drive through, along with disabling that option I saw in ESXi to get SMART to pass through?
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eduncan911
I've very happily been running W2K12 and Stablebit Drivepool/Scanner for years. I do run 3 to 5 Hyper-V VMs at times for various activities.
I'm upgrading, and I am also rebuilding those VMs (moving mostly to Linux). But, Stablebit is 100% Windows. So, I need to keep a Windows machine around.
I'd like to use ESXi hypervisor on this new build; but, I have a few advanced concerns about running Stablebit Drivepool/scanner in a VM and passing the disks through.
Does Drivepool/Scanner live happily in an ESXi Windows VM with passthrough disks?
Do I pass the HBA device through to the Windows VM, in order to get all the HDDs and SMART to show up? DrivePool will be the only thing using the HBA device. Or, do I pass each individual drive through, along with disabling that option I saw in ESXi to get SMART to pass through?
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