NAS to host VMs

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boss6021

Limp Gawd
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Oct 11, 2006
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Sorry if this is posted in the wrong section. Wasn't sure really how to categorize the question. Here goes.

I am currently searching for solutions to the following needs.

A NAS/small footprint storage server with at least 4 bays.

Low power consumption would be nice, but far from priority.

The lower the cost the better. Hoping to stay around $1500

Needs to be able to host Windows 7, 8/8.1, Server 2008 R2 through Server 2012 R2 VMs.

More than 8GB of available RAM to allocate to VMs.

Minimum of quad core CPU.

The use case for this device will be image based backup storage, with the option to either mount, or import the VHD into the hypervisor to run a server/workstation in the event of a DR need.

I have looked at QNAP, Synology, Netgear, Thecus, and Voyageurpc solutions. None, thus far have met the criteria. I'm not entirely sure something exists in this market. The closest one I have seen is from QNAP. I like the options, and that it comes preconfigured. The only issue I have with them is that their boxes are anemic on RAM, and when you get to where it needs to be performance wise, the cost and form factor become an issue.

I realize i'm asking a lot for such a small footprint/price. I mainly want to explore all options, and see if maybe there is a product i'm unaware of. Thank you all in advance for your time.
 
You could easily build an unraid box for that much and use any hardware you wanted, it has the ability to run VMs and docker containers.

It could be as small as the hardware you select, small case with mATX board and a 5 in 3 hot swap cage.
 
Have you looked at something like this HP ProLiant ML310e or MicroServer with FreeNAS or similar?
 
zaniix said:
You could easily build an unraid box for that much and use any hardware you wanted, it has the ability to run VMs and docker containers.

It could be as small as the hardware you select, small case with mATX board and a 5 in 3 hot swap cage.
Click to expand...

The catch with using an open source setup is familiarity and support. We/our clients are almost exclusively a Microsoft operation. Most techs are familiar with the Synology interface, and could learn the QNAP or similar interface fairly quickly. The VMs will almost all be Hyper-V VHDs.
 
jimh425 said:
Have you looked at something like this HP ProLiant ML310e or MicroServer with FreeNAS or similar?
Click to expand...

I did look at the HP Proliant ML310 series. The hardware seemed adequate, but left the software to run on it in question.
 
You can easily upgrade the CPU and RAM on the QNAP ones yourself (higher end models). Nothing proprietary there. Just get the lowest specced version of the model you want and go from there. That will easily fit in your budget.
 
Blue Fox said:
You can easily upgrade the CPU and RAM on the QNAP ones yourself (higher end models). Nothing proprietary there. Just get the lowest specced version of the model you want and go from there. That will easily fit in your budget.
Click to expand...

Any models? I only see the 871T that is out of budget.
 
Any model that has multiple CPU versions available is going to be socketed. Upgrading that will be a bit more of a pain (lot of disassembly). You can upgrade the RAM on nearly all but the lowest end units much more easily. QNAP actually lists directions for doing it too. If you can live with 8GB, even a TS-453 Pro might do and should be had for under $1000 with 4 disks (unless you need huge ones).
 
Blue Fox said:
Any model that has multiple CPU versions available is going to be socketed. Upgrading that will be a bit more of a pain (lot of disassembly). You can upgrade the RAM on nearly all but the lowest end units much more easily. QNAP actually lists directions for doing it too. If you can live with 8GB, even a TS-453 Pro might do and should be had for under $1000 with 4 disks (unless you need huge ones).
Click to expand...

Most customers could be fully backed up with 4TB or less easily. The 8GB limit is a big concern. If I were only temporarily hosting a DC or a file server, I wouldn't worry. But they might have a need for an Exchange server to be brought up temporarily.
 
boss6021, you seem to be mixing terminology. Are you wanting a hypervisor host that also is a NAS or a storage device for other hypervisor hosts?
 
jimh425 said:
boss6021, you seem to be mixing terminology. Are you wanting a hypervisor host that also is a NAS or a storage device for other hypervisor hosts?
Click to expand...

Not mixing terminology. I want a NAS that hosts VMs directly on the appliance. Plain and simple.
 
I guess I missed that NAS devices were hosting VMs now, thanks!

With that in mind, the processor you have will limit what you can have running on it. You can't support 64bit software with a 32bit processor. If you created your own system and installed linux, you could use KVM for the VMs and still provide NAS functionality.
 
boss6021 said:
Not mixing terminology. I want a NAS that hosts VMs directly on the appliance. Plain and simple.
Click to expand...

Nearly every NAS can host VMs.

But there are differences in
- the quality of the NAS, mainly a feature of the filesysystem
- the features of the virtualisation layer and the supported VMS

Mainly you can
- use BSD, Linux or Solaris and virtualize on top (ex Virtualbox) or within
the OS, best with a virtualisation layer (KVM, Zones etc).
A filesystem like btrfs or ZFS will improve NAS quality over ext4
When you buy a NAS like a Synology its Linux with mostly ext4.

- use Hyper-V, main advantage is, that you can use it as a desktop
but while ReFS is on a good way, its storage quality is not not yet in par with ZFS
while ntfs is like ext4 far behind.

- use ESXi as a low footprint barebone type-1 virtualizer and virtualize
everything on top, with best of all support for any guests (BSD, OSX, Linux, Solaris, Windows).
I prefer this as setup/ restore is nearly zero config

If you want to virtualize storage on top of ESXi, you should only virtualize the storage OS -
not the storage like controller and disks - this requires vt-d. In such a config, a ZFS storage appliance
is the option, either something like FreeNAS, NexentaStor or my napp-it as a ready to use .ova template
based on the free Solaris clone OmniOS (pure ZFS, zero config)
 
Last edited:
The ZFS gods have spoken!

He wants a simple off the shelf solution with support and not something they have to learn and support themselves and it has to fall into the budget.

It doesn't matter how much better something is if it isn't what they want.
 
Can you not make a post advertising ZFS? It's getting bloody old and annoying. You completely ignored what the OP posted as usual.
 
Btrfs, ReFS and ZFS is a milestone regarding NAS and Storage.
If you want to stay without checksums, copy on write and snaps, ok.
 
zaniix said:
The ZFS gods have spoken!

He wants a simple off the shelf solution with support and not something they have to learn and support themselves and it has to fall into the budget.

It doesn't matter how much better something is if it isn't what they want.
Click to expand...

Like I said, if this were just me supporting it, I would have no issues using a Linux variant to accomplish it. My boss has no interest in using anything Linux related. That discussion is for another time.

For the host OS, I want something with low maintenance (i.e. canned OS from QNAP, Synology). I have been looking at unRAID as an option. As long as the interface, and support are dirt simple, while still getting decent support from the company, I may be able to sneak it past management.

_Gea,

I completely understand where you are coming from on this.
 
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