Reply To: Synology NAS ISCSI Query “topic moved” Hi all, Does anyone have a Synology NAS and setup iSCSI? Totally new to ISCSI, never used it before. My HP microserver HD is getting a bit old now and…

[kev2021]

Hi,

I’m not sure if synology is hardware or software raid tbh, you setup the raid via the GUI.  Yes, total storage space is around 14.3TB and I have approx. 4TB free at present so after moving the VMs over, I will have 3TB free.

I also have 3 free bays in the synology nas but as mentioned earlier, if I want to increase the capacity, I would need to move to a RAID 6 which effectively means adding 1 drive will not give me any additional capacity so I’d have to add 2 drives.  Alternatively, I could add 2 drives and set them up as a new volume in a mirror and host my VMs on that volume but unsure at present which way to go.

At present, I’m thinking use existing volume (providing data isn’t wiped) as that’s the cheapest option as no additional cost is required.

For the Gen 10 plus, I went with the Intel Xeon E-2224 4 Core Processor | 16GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM Intel Xeon E-2224 4 Core Processor | 16GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM.  The Pentium isn’t on the hardware compatibility list for vmware.  I did look at getting another 16GB of ram but I believe it will be EEC memory and that is over £100 for 16GB so for now, as my Gen 8 has only 16GB of ram, I’m going to keep the memory as is and then later in the year, may look at getting an additional 16GB ram to take it to the max 32GB.  I suspect I’ll need that as I need to update my VMs from running win2012R2 to Win 2022 which may involve doing in-place upgrades from 2022R2 to 2016, then maybe to 2019 and then 2022 or maybe I can go from 2016 to 2022 but I believe I need to go to 2016 first.

Alternatively, I setup a new VM’s with 2022 and then migrate the FSMO roles over to the new server and the data and then decomm the existing server and for my other servers, just re-setup from scratch and setup the apps and move the data over, nt sure yet, just focusing on the initial server setup at the moment.

With VMWare, I can use the raid on the Microserver gen 10 plus so by moving the VMs over the synology nas, I’ll then just had 1 drive running the vmware esxi with no redundancy etc it will just be a single drive and that’s it.  The other drives would be independent drives so will have to see what could use them for.

I have read the Microserver, i can plug a USB drive in internally with esxi on and launch it BUT for me, I’m not overly keen on leaving a USB stick inside the machine which is on 24/7/365, most USB sticks get quiet hot when I’ve used them and i’m not sure its viable tbh.  I can see if being ok if you only use the server for a short while and then turn it off etc but having it on 24/7, I’m not sure is viable, better with a HDD/SSD I think.

I thought about putting a SSD in the Gen 10 for esxi but tbh I’m not sure I’d see much advantage as esxi is a relatively small OS and doesn’t take too long to boot up on HHDs, its the actual VMs that take a while to boot up (I have approx 4 i think that power on when the machine is powered on) and overall they take probably 5 mins all be reachable but as I don’t turn it off that frequently, its not a huge deal.

The Synology nas is good but I feel that have skimped a little on CPU, it is a INTEL Atom C3538 2.1ghz 4 core CPU, I’d sooner of seen a non atom CPU tbh as they not as good as regular CPUs. From looking at reviews at the time, I think a lot of people were expecting them to move away from Atom CPUs but they didn’t which was a bit of a let down.

Yes, switch is all 1GBps but I’m hoping have 4 x 1gbps in a trunk giving me 4gbps from switch to nas, will be enough to manage simultaneous connections etc as each device is 1gbps max meaning it has 3gbps extra to facility VMs running etc. I believe my HP switch 1810G i think it is has 2 fibre ports but I think they are 1Gb fibre ports not 10gbe.

Yes, synology has ability to a 10GBe card but I’d then have to change all the cabling running round the house to newer cables and also get 10gbe cards for my PC etc so more expense and its not really needed at the moment, as long as the VMs will run and perform ok from synology NAS and it doesn’t impact ability to open/save files, copy files, watching films from the nas then I’m hoping it will be ok but will have to see as never done it before.

Also will need to see what the CPU/memory usage is like on the synology nas when I have the gen 10 loading 4 VMs from the nas, I expect network traffic to increase and likely CPU but maybe not memory.  If memory does increase a lot then I can always get more ram for it at a later date.

I also think in the new esxi that have altered it now so I may not need 1 of my VMs anymore wo will mean only 3 VMs running on start up :)  Will be interesting to see what speed is like loading the VMs and using the VMs.

Kev

 

 

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