a virtual NAS

[Tom Metro]

Tom McLaughlin wrote:
> I'm the process of rebuilding my home network and moving things from 
> physical machines to virtual machines right now and a NAS VM is on my 
> list.

What do you see as an advantage to implementing a NAS as a VM?

If the disks themselves are held in an external subsystem (like one of 
the 4-bay SATA subsystems with multi-lane eSATA cabling that are 
becoming economical), and you have two VM hosts, such that if one fails, 
you can connect the subsystem to the other machine and restart the NAS 
service there, then it makes sense. (Even better if you could make the 
switch over automatic, but then you'd have to go with a more expensive 
interface, like iSCSI or AoE.)


> I may end up playing with FreeNAS though OpenFiler looks to be nice too.

Assuming your VM host is running Linux, then a VM also makes sense as a 
way to run FreeNAS. The case seems less compelling for OpenFiler. Unless 
you really like the OpenFiler GUI, just install Samba on the host.

I wonder what kind of performance hit you'd take by running FreeNAS in a 
VM, given that you'd probably be running it on a much faster CPU than 
what's typically found in low-power NAS appliances.

I wonder if you'd end up with an overall power savings taking the VM 
approach rather than dedicated low-power hardware.

The big down side to the VM approach is that you're putting a lot of 
eggs in one basket, if you don't happen to have a second server to 
migrate things to when the hardware fails.

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/