Home Lab XenServer - preferred Storage method
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Is it better, to build a VM to host ISO's from, or to use local storage directly in xen?
On my rebuild last night I went with this: Using CCISS Storage
Which is using the local CCISS storage and a folder under /var/run/sr-mount/UUID/ISO as my ISO store.
Which seems incredibly simple. So I guess I have to ask. Is this the recommended solution?
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I would think local storage would be easier, faster, and less overhead.
However - I could be wrong.
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On VMWare, I always load the ISO files up on the data store directly so I can mount them as needed for VM creation.
With Hyper-V I always make sure that the C drive is large enough to hold the ISO files and put them in a folder named ISOs. When I need to add/remove them, I just browse to it from another machine and access the c$ admin share to change them.
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@DustinB3403 said:
VM to host ISO's from, or to use local storage directly in xen?
On my rebuild last night I went with this:
I never understood why there wasn't an option in XenCenter to create a local iso repo. I did the same thing, except used another local drive and mounted it in /mnt/iso.
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Like @JaredBusch I store my ISOs in the ESXi filestore.
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@johnhooks said:
@DustinB3403 said:
VM to host ISO's from, or to use local storage directly in xen?
On my rebuild last night I went with this:
I never understood why there wasn't an option in XenCenter to create a local iso repo. I did the same thing, except used another local drive and mounted it in /mnt/iso.
This is what I did as well. Mine is a fairly large USB stick though.
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@coliver said:
@johnhooks said:
@DustinB3403 said:
VM to host ISO's from, or to use local storage directly in xen?
On my rebuild last night I went with this:
I never understood why there wasn't an option in XenCenter to create a local iso repo. I did the same thing, except used another local drive and mounted it in /mnt/iso.
This is what I did as well. Mine is a fairly large USB stick though.
I did have it that way, but when I set up the server again, I didn't use the USB. The drive I have set up is way overkill for an ISO repo, so I might go back to the USB.
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Out of curiosity has anyone used software RAID with XenServer?
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@johnhooks said:
Out of curiosity has anyone used software RAID with XenServer?
Yep, very unsupported but it works.
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@coliver said:
@johnhooks said:
Out of curiosity has anyone used software RAID with XenServer?
Yep, very unsupported but it works.
That's what I read. I was kind of afraid to try it because I saw some people had trouble with 6.5 and it was fine in 6.2. I didn't know if it was worth it to try or not.
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@johnhooks said:
@coliver said:
@johnhooks said:
Out of curiosity has anyone used software RAID with XenServer?
Yep, very unsupported but it works.
That's what I read. I was kind of afraid to try it because I saw some people had trouble with 6.5 and it was fine in 6.2. I didn't know if it was worth it to try or not.
I haven't updated to 6.5 yet. I probably will wait till I get an actual server with a hardware raid controller. Right now i just have a whitebox desktop with 4 drives in it. Works fairly well for what I use it for but I want to expand the functionality in the future.
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@johnhooks Yes, I initially tried it, it doesn't work well at all.
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@coliver said:
@johnhooks said:
@coliver said:
@johnhooks said:
Out of curiosity has anyone used software RAID with XenServer?
Yep, very unsupported but it works.
That's what I read. I was kind of afraid to try it because I saw some people had trouble with 6.5 and it was fine in 6.2. I didn't know if it was worth it to try or not.
I haven't updated to 6.5 yet. I probably will wait till I get an actual server with a hardware raid controller. Right now i just have a whitebox desktop with 4 drives in it. Works fairly well for what I use it for but I want to expand the functionality in the future.
I wonder why they don't support software RAID since the Dom0 is CentOS.
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@johnhooks said:
@coliver said:
@johnhooks said:
@coliver said:
@johnhooks said:
Out of curiosity has anyone used software RAID with XenServer?
Yep, very unsupported but it works.
That's what I read. I was kind of afraid to try it because I saw some people had trouble with 6.5 and it was fine in 6.2. I didn't know if it was worth it to try or not.
I haven't updated to 6.5 yet. I probably will wait till I get an actual server with a hardware raid controller. Right now i just have a whitebox desktop with 4 drives in it. Works fairly well for what I use it for but I want to expand the functionality in the future.
I wonder why they don't support software RAID since the Dom0 is CentOS.
My assumption is because Dom0 is just another VM with special permissions. If software raid were to do something bad it could mess with the other VMs? I really have no clue it does seem like a missed segment though.
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As far as I could tell, is they XS simply doesn't want to get involved with Software RAIDs or Fake RAIDs because of the issues that they pose.
I could find no other reason.
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@gjacobse said:
I would think local storage would be easier, faster, and less overhead.
However - I could be wrong.
Yup, nothing is going to beat putting the files right on an HP SmartArray.
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@JaredBusch said:
On VMWare, I always load the ISO files up on the data store directly so I can mount them as needed for VM creation.
Same here. In XenServer I normally mount a CIFS share loaded with ISO files to make things easy.
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@johnhooks said:
Out of curiosity has anyone used software RAID with XenServer?
Looked into it. I'm a big user of hardware RAID for stuff in this category, I like the features and need others to be able to swap hard drives when they fail, but it will work just fine.
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So i did the "right" or best practice, in limiting my Environment by not introducing a VM or another host, and just loading my ISO's directly into the share.
Awesome!
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@coliver said:
@johnhooks said:
Out of curiosity has anyone used software RAID with XenServer?
Yep, very unsupported but it works.
Important to note that it is fully supported by Xen, just not the XenServer package.
