Best network design for VM and storage. HA VMware Home Lab

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polar
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jul 10, 2019 2:29 pm

Wed Jul 10, 2019 4:00 pm

Hi all.

After a week of reading and studying I'm coming close to a conclusion on how to set up my VMware hosts and VMs. But One thing I am having doubts about, and was hoping you professionals can give me a few good pointers :)

My current Home Lab setup is on one physical HPE server.
- ESXi on bootable USB.
- 1 x 250GB datastore (most VMs are installed here)
- 3 x 8 TB RAW

One of the VMs installed on the 250 GB datastore is a Synology NAS server. The 3 x 8 TB RAW are assigned to this VM. Synology is configured with Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR) with data protection with 1 disk fault-tolerance. (16 TB usable storage and 8 TB standby if one disk should give errors or become faulty).

In ESXi I have assigned a folder on the NAS as datastore as well. Here I have stored both OS-iso's and a few VMs.

Questions:

1)
From what I understood I can run "Starwind vSAN Free" to create a HA 2-node setup. I am planning on setting up a second physical HPE server with the same hard disk configuration. Now, where I am having my doubts is how to deal with the 3 x 8 TB RAW. Is "Starwind vSAN Free" duplicating "AS-IS" (read "chinese copy")? And if so, wouldn't this be a waist of 8 TB disk space? Meaning, I am running a form of RAID, and now the RAId is going to be duplicated. if I should set up a "No-Raid" NAS with 3 x 8 TB = 24 TB "Starwind vSAN Free" would duplicate it 100% anyway?

2)
The other thing I assume from my findings is that the 2-node solution is working when using VMware vSphere (where I use the vSphere client on Windows to connect to my ESXi server). But how will this work when I manage my host and VMs with the vCenter appliance installed on my host?

3)
Taking it one step further: If I was to install VMware Horizon and the associated required modules on host A, would my 2-node "Starwind vSAN Free" solution still be the way to go for my Home Lab ?

4)
I'm confused about the fact if I really need a vSAN to achieve the above. The term HA and vSAN keeps popping up in pair in every article I find, while my understanding is that strictly taken a vSAN is (from Google: VMware vSAN™ aggregates local or direct-attached data storage devices to create a single storage pool shared across all hosts in the vSAN cluster.) But that is not what I am looking for.... I guess ... ...

5)
When looking at how a backup solution would be planned into this setup, I would think this is going to require an additional physical server with minimum 24TB hard disk space to store the backup files on to. Or a cloud based storage (I have unlimited storage space on my web server...)

So there you have it. Points 1 2 3 and 4 are at the very least local installs and where I need to understand how this will work with "Starwind vSAN Free". Point 5 is a little bonus where I would appreciate it to get your insight :)

Many thanks in advance for reading this !
Oleg(staff)
Staff
Posts: 568
Joined: Fri Nov 24, 2017 7:52 am

Fri Jul 12, 2019 8:55 am

Hi polar,
1)
From what I understood I can run "Starwind vSAN Free" to create a HA 2-node setup. I am planning on setting up a second physical HPE server with the same hard disk configuration. Now, where I am having my doubts is how to deal with the 3 x 8 TB RAW. Is "Starwind vSAN Free" duplicating "AS-IS" (read "chinese copy")? And if so, wouldn't this be a waist of 8 TB disk space? Meaning, I am running a form of RAID, and now the RAId is going to be duplicated. if I should set up a "No-Raid" NAS with 3 x 8 TB = 24 TB "Starwind vSAN Free" would duplicate it 100% anyway?
It is highly recommended to have a redundant RAID array configured as the underlying storage for StarWind in order to avoid the situation of simultaneous disk failure on both nodes. Please find recommended settings.
2)
The other thing I assume from my findings is that the 2-node solution is working when using VMware vSphere (where I use the vSphere client on Windows to connect to my ESXi server). But how will this work when I manage my host and VMs with the vCenter appliance installed on my host?
Yes, StarWind in working on storage level only and responsible for HA storage. Compute resources of VMs you are managing with the help of vCenter.
3)
Taking it one step further: If I was to install VMware Horizon and the associated required modules on host A, would my 2-node "Starwind vSAN Free" solution still be the way to go for my Home Lab ?
Yes
4)
I'm confused about the fact if I really need a vSAN to achieve the above. The term HA and vSAN keeps popping up in pair in every article I find, while my understanding is that strictly taken a vSAN is (from Google: VMware vSAN™ aggregates local or direct-attached data storage devices to create a single storage pool shared across all hosts in the vSAN cluster.) But that is not what I am looking for.... I guess ... ...
It depends on your needs :)
5)
When looking at how a backup solution would be planned into this setup, I would think this is going to require an additional physical server with minimum 24TB hard disk space to store the backup files on to. Or a cloud based storage (I have unlimited storage space on my web server...)
The size of the backup server depends on retention policy you are planning to use and number of backups you want to keep.
polar
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jul 10, 2019 2:29 pm

Sun Jul 14, 2019 9:59 pm

Thank you for your input. Please keep in mind that I'm still learning about vSAN and HA. So maybe my questions and intentions are not always clear to even myself :) . But I see what you mean. The need of a RAID setup is preferable "to avoid the situation of simultaneous disk failure on both nodes". In a business production scenario I would fully agree. For a home lab not so... What are the odds of the two discs go down simultaneously... No, not a new discussion I want to start, just balancing my Home Lab ;) .

Because, the way you draft it I would be running RAID on a machine as a primary security measure in case of disk failure, BEFORE the additional security layer a vSAN could give me would hit in, right ? So now I would have a double security layer. If the local RAID would fail, I could always rely on the second host via vSAN.

My conclusion: I'm good with just the vSAN, but RAID is possible. But here I don't think you answered the actual question #1concerning how vSAN will deal with the 3 disks that are assigned to a VM as RAW disks. Never mind the RAID setup question. Just the basics, one USB drive that boots the ESXi OS, one 250 GB that holds a datastore, and 3 disks that are assigned RAW to one of the VMs. Will the entire environment including disk setup be mirrored by vSAN?

Question #4 I think I figured out by reading the VMware pages one more time. HA requires shared storage, but this would mean that in a strict VMware HA cluster the NAS would be a single point of failure. And this would be solved with using the Starwind vSAN, or am I wrong here ?

Best regards,

Polar
Oleg(staff)
Staff
Posts: 568
Joined: Fri Nov 24, 2017 7:52 am

Mon Jul 15, 2019 12:44 pm

Disks can be from the same batch, for example :)
Because, the way you draft it I would be running RAID on a machine as a primary security measure in case of disk failure, BEFORE the additional security layer a vSAN could give me would hit in, right ? So now I would have a double security layer. If the local RAID would fail, I could always rely on the second host via vSAN.
Yes, you will have two identical copies, if both nodes were in the sycnhronized state at the moment of single node failure.
My conclusion: I'm good with just the vSAN, but RAID is possible. But here I don't think you answered the actual question #1concerning how vSAN will deal with the 3 disks that are assigned to a VM as RAW disks. Never mind the RAID setup question. Just the basics, one USB drive that boots the ESXi OS, one 250 GB that holds a datastore, and 3 disks that are assigned RAW to one of the VMs. Will the entire environment including disk setup be mirrored by vSAN?
You can create StarWind VM on 250 Gb datastore and StarWind devices on 3 discs connected to the VM. After that replicate StarWind devices, make them HA between this and second VM on another host.
Question #4 I think I figured out by reading the VMware pages one more time. HA requires shared storage, but this would mean that in a strict VMware HA cluster the NAS would be a single point of failure. And this would be solved with using the Starwind vSAN, or am I wrong here ?
Correct :)
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