N40L NAS + VM

[alzzzz]

I'm planning on building a NAS with the capability to have VMs for media server etc all in one box

Hardware
N40L - 8GB Ram

Bay 1 - 2TB 3.5" Drive
Bay 2 - 2TB 3.5" Drive
Bay 3 - 2TB 3.5" Drive
Bay 4 - 2TB 3.5" Drive

CD Sata - 128Gb SSD OCZ Agility 4
E-Sata    - 128Gb SSD OCZ Agility 4 (Cable re-routed through case)

Planned solution
USB pen drive with ESXi 5 installed
SSD drives in Raid1 (Onboard HW raid)
Freenas VM with all 2TB drives mapped directly to Freenas VM as raw disks and added to zfs pool
Other Vms as required running on SSD drives

Current Issues
1) Hardware raid doesnt recognise the SSD drives
- Other non ssd drives are recognised
- I've updated the bios as per the mod link below
- The SSD have the latest BIOS
- I can't find a way of updating the raid firmware
- I tried the drives in the standard bays for testing and they are recognised by the bios

2) Need an E-Sata to Sata cable
- I tried to modify a sata which didnt work
- Just need to order one - easy

3) Hardware Raid not linked to E-Sata & CD Sata?
- not tested yet as I need an E-sata cable
- I can move the sata connections around to use the bays if needed
- Shouldnt be a problem

I've searched for other setups but can't find anything with SSD using raid. Any ideas?

 

Let me know if you need any more info.

(Link for Raw disk mapping - Link)
(Link for Bios Mod - Link)

[jmwills]

Ports 5 & 6 cannot be RAID to the best of my knowledge.  Maybe Mr Microserver, Joe_Miner will jump in.

[ikon]

Ports 5 & 6 cannot be RAID to the best of my knowledge.  Maybe Mr Microserver, Joe_Miner will jump in.

 

Especially when using the mod BIOS. My understanding is that the onboard RAID is unusable with the mod BIOS.

[schoondoggy]

As far as I know ESXi does not support the motherboard RAID on the MicroServer. If you want RAID with ESXi it is best to use a supported RAID card. You could use a simple two port card to mirror the SSD's or you could put the SSD's in IcyDock RAID box;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994099

Are you going to put the other drives in a RAID set?

[alzzzz]

Thanks for the quick responses. 

 

I'll test out a whether a couple of non ssd drives using the onboard raid are visible in vmware as this could be a bigger problem with the plan

 

Any ideas why the SSD drives arent recognised or way around this?

 

Could be interested in the icydock, but would like to use the hardware in built if possible.

[ikon]

To use the onboard RAID you will have to flash back to the default HP BIOS. The disadvantage to this is the 2 ports you want to use will run at SATA I speeds, which will pretty much negate any advantage from using SSDs. I'm also not sure if you even can use RAID with ports 4 & 5.

[schoondoggy]

and the RAID on the motherboard is not supported by ESXi,,,,