CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxvmwarevirtualizationxen
JasonBrown
JasonBrown

Reputation:

Setting up a NAS with Citrix XenServer

Just a quick query on anyone whos worked with XenServer, I want to setup a NAS at home but with virtualization (I've looked into VMWare Server and KVM, I quite like KVM!) but I was told about XenServer 5.5.

I have comomodity hardware (ASUS board, dual core 2.66Ghz CPU with 8Gb RAM), I need to setup a fileserver to house about 2-3Tb worth of data (big chunky video - not porn!). Need to run Linux (preferably CentOS) but also run Windows virtualised for testing.

I was thinking of going the XenServer route, however I want to be able to offer a VM access to the 2-3Tb of HDDs (5 HDD drives) directly so it can do its thing (maybe using FreeNAS).

Would this be possible with XenServer? Or will I have to do more work - and another box - to offer this?

My goals are to use FreeNAS (ZFS!) for the filesserver, CentOS for SVN and aother bits we need to use (LAMP Stack), Windows for our win32 testing all on one box.

I see this iSCSI target bits and get scared.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 6641

Answers (1)

benathon
benathon

Reputation: 7633

XenServer 5.5 supports mdadm raid. This feature was broken in XenServer 5.6. If your ok with not having the new features (intellicache is the only new thing), then 5.5 may solve your problems here.

One problem is that XenServer does not support ZFS. All it can do is mdadm RAID with ext3. If you want you can install freenas ontop of your raid. In my opinion this isn't the best approach for you.

Another setup would to be have an even more comodity box running frenas with your harddrives. Then use the box you mentioned to run XenServer. In this setup you would mount your storage over the network. This can be done via NFS or iSCSI with equal features/performance. If you go this 2 box route, you can use XenServer 5.6 with intellicache. That would be rokin.

Upvotes: 1

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