{"id":1684,"date":"2011-09-18T11:44:43","date_gmt":"2011-09-18T16:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/?p=1684"},"modified":"2011-12-30T09:28:05","modified_gmt":"2011-12-30T15:28:05","slug":"nested-vsphere-lab-in-vmware-workstation-fasteraffordableportable-storage-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/nested-vsphere-lab-in-vmware-workstation-fasteraffordableportable-storage-alternative\/","title":{"rendered":"Nested vSphere Lab in VMware Workstation – Faster\/Affordable\/Portable Storage Alternative"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pre-lab days<\/strong>
\nBefore I had access to a lab, it was difficult to test nested vSphere configurations due the performance.<\/p>\n

With vSphere 4.1, I could run nested ESXi hosts on VMware Workstation, but there was always one bottleneck.\u00a0 Much like many enterprise environments, I was constrained by my storage.<\/p>\n

Running VMware Workstation on top of Windows 7 was fine, despite the fact that my workstation only had 8GB of physical RAM.\u00a0 I started out using the Starwind iSCSI SAN<\/a><\/strong> solution after talking to Zorian Rotenberg, who at the time, worked for Starwind Software (he now works for Veeam<\/a><\/strong>).\u00a0 I was running Starwind native on my Windows 7 installation.\u00a0 I had several disks in my workstation, so it was easy to put different iSCSI LUNs on different physical hard disks.\u00a0 Still I didn’t get the best performance.\u00a0 In addition to my desktop having 8GB of RAM, my laptop had 8GB of RAM.<\/p>\n

I’m not going to rehash how to leverage the Starwind iSCSI software, as there are many posts out there how to do this.<\/p>\n

Flexible between laptop & desktop<\/strong>
\nHow could I leverage something that I could easily use between both my desktop and laptop?\u00a0 I wasn’t really worried about being able to use them at the same time, and with the right solution, I could bring it with me to work if I wanted to share some of the configurations I had worked on at home.\u00a0 What could I use to do this?<\/p>\n

I started to think about a USB solution. I didn’t really like that, given that USB 2.0 tops out at 480Mbps of throughput (including overhead).\u00a0 I noticed that my laptop had an eSATA (3.0Mbps) port. Unfortunately it didn’t. But I could add an eSATA card to my desktop, and eSATA could work.<\/p>\n

eSATA interface for native drive speed<\/strong>
\nI was in town and went by the local BestBuy.\u00a0 I found this card: Dynex\u2122 – 2-Port eSATA II PCI Express Adapter<\/a><\/strong> for $19.99. Not too bad. And given the time, SATA III wasn’t out yet, so this was fine.<\/p>\n

So now both the laptop and desktop had eSATA ports.\u00a0 Now to find an enclosure that would do eSATA.\u00a0 The ones at BestBuy were a little pricey, not to mention somewhat limited in the selection.<\/p>\n

eSATA enclosure to move between platforms<\/strong><\/strong>
\nI then went to the tried and true NewEgg web site.\u00a0 I started looking around at eSATA enclosures.\u00a0 There were many that looks to be the same as the USB 2.0 ones, but with an eSATA interface as well.<\/p>\n

I started thinking, one disk in an eSATA enclosure is going to be about as fast as a local drive. Going with a single SATA disk isn’t going to bring me much.\u00a0 I then started to look at multiple drive enclosures.<\/p>\n

The enclosures that had 3 or more drives were pretty pricey, while dual bay enclosures were somewhat reasonable.<\/p>\n

I decided on a Rosewill dual bay enclosure that had RAID0\/1\/JBOD with USB 2.0\/eSATA II interfaces.\u00a0 I’d link to that item, but it isn’t available anymore.<\/p>\n

The closest thing I can find to match, would be this one: Vantec NexStar NST-400MX-SR<\/a><\/strong> for $91.99.\u00a0 The Rosewill I bought was about the same price, until I saw a NewEgg DailyDeal for $60.<\/p>\n

At this point, I had $80+tax+shipping for everything, but I needed drives.<\/p>\n

Drives<\/strong>
\nFortunately I had a couple 250GB drives left over from my desktop’s original 500GB RAID0 configuration. After setting up the RAID0 configuration through the enclosure’s interface, I formatted it to be used by my desktop\/laptop.<\/p>\n

Now I had a couple drives, but if you don’t, SATA II drives are not that expensive lately.\u00a0 Take a look at NewEgg daily to look for the best deals.\u00a0 As of this writing, there is a Hitachi 500GB (7200RPM) drive for $40.\u00a0 Not too bad.<\/p>\n

If I had to do it today<\/strong>
\nSo if I had to configure the same setup today it would cost me:<\/p>\n

Already having drives (about $120<\/strong>)<\/p>\n