Quasimojo

I'm building a home server that will also, at some point, do double-duty as an HTPC. It will be running one, possibly two Microsoft development servers in virtual machines (SQL Server, SharePoint, IIS, domain controller, etc.), plus perhaps one Linux server (LAMP stack).

The fact that it will be functioning as an HTPC means that I won't be able to use a server OS as the host, so Hyper-V is not an option. At this point it's looking like I'll go with VMWare ESXi, as Microsoft's Virtual PC hasn't had very good support for Linux in the past.

One thing I want to do is reduce the heat this machine will be generating. I'm not going to use green hard drives, but I would like to keep the number of hard drive down if possible. I'm thinking I will go with a total of four drives:

1 - Host OS (probably Windows 7 Ultimate)
1 - Virtual Machines
2 - Data drives in RAID-1 (this array will also eventually house my media library)

It's very important to run virtual machines from a different drive than the host OS, but I was wondering, would a RAID-1 array eliminate that concern? Could the host OS and virtual machines reside on the same RAID-1 array without the performace penalties associated with them being on the same drive?

SSD's with their low operating temps and high performance would be perfect for the OS and perhaps even VM drives, but at this point they are still just too expensive, not to mention a bit of a crap-shoot where finding an effective brand is concerned.

Anyone else ever tried using VM's on the same RAID volume as the hose OS?

__________________
"You might be a king, or a little street-sweeper,
But sooner or later, you dance with the Reaper."
-- Grim Reaper, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Manyak

A hypervisor like ESXi doesn't need a host OS: it is the host OS. So any OS's you install on it will be in a virtual machine (and don't forget that VM's can't access the GPU so you're pretty much relying on CPU decoding and rendering on the HTPC).

The whole idea of keeping the OS's separate isn't just for performance, it's also for reliability and because it simplifies maintenance (reformats, array expansions, HDD upgrades, backups, and so on). But as far as performance goes, using any sort of RAID is not as good as simply keeping them separate. The biggest problem lies in the Disk I/O through virtual machines - if you configure VMWare to use a virtual disk file then disk access is slower than if you tell it to use an entire hard drive. The second problem is that when two of them start doing a lot of Disk I/O operations you still end up with one 'effective' drive head in RAID1 instead of two separate ones, unless you've got a fancy RAID controller that can do it (onboard RAID doesn't do it) - and even then it's only done for reads, not writes.

As for your drives, your best bet is to simply use two 2.5" drives for the OS (WD Scorpio Blues run extremely cool) and green 3.5" drives for your data. As for booting ESXi, you can do that off of a CompactFlash card thrown into an IDE or SATA adapter.

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Quasimojo

So ESXi doesn't run inside the host OS? I did not know that. I have to run something like Windows 7 for the HTPC functionality. I guess that means I'll have to use Microsoft Virtual PC. I think there are one or two Linux distros that it will accommodate, just no 64-bit options for the virtual machines. :/

I'm really not that familiar with ESXi (obviously), and I just assumed that the VMWare vhd's were self-contained like those in VPC and therefore could be run from any location. That being the case, I had hoped RAID would alleviate much of the disk I/O contention between a couple of VM's and the host OS.

Here's my biggest concern. If I load this machine up with drives, it could put out a lot of heat. When this box ends up next to the TV in the living room at some point, I don't want it warming up the room.

What arrangement would you consider for dealing with the OS (media center capable), multiple VM's and media library/file share? By the way, I do intend to pick up a dedicated RAID card.

__________________
"You might be a king, or a little street-sweeper,
But sooner or later, you dance with the Reaper."
-- Grim Reaper, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Laforet

Just wondering why can't you use a server OS for HTPC? I understand that from Server 2008 onwards all the features of the equivalent desktop OS are included, you just have to manually enable them.

A bit of info here, I am fairly sure DX10 is also included
http://blogs.msdn.com/vijaysk/archiv...esktop-os.aspx

As for hardware, check out this thread. CM drive cages are great for fitting multiple HDDs while allowing decent ventilation.
http://www.overclock.net/servers/486...ll-server.html

Manyak

You can still use VMWare Workstation or VMWare Server from within a host OS (a lot better than Microsoft's stuff in many ways). It's only ESXi that's it's own OS.

And you know what, now that I'm thinking about it properly, you aren't really expecting a lot of traffic on the web server are you? Because I think you can probably get away with just using a virtual disk file on the main OS drive if not.

As for the heat, is there any reason why you can't put the computer in a different room and just run long cables to your living room? That would give you all the freedom you need.

Either way, there's not much you can do about the heat from the HDDs other than to use the coolest ones, and to keep the number of drives down to as few as possible (like using 2TB drives instead of 1TB, even though they're still stupidly priced).

As for the HDD's, a WD Scorpio Black 160gb is as good as it gets. 7200RPM performance, laptop HDD heat. If you don't expect a lot of traffic on your website just use a single one, partitioned in two - have the host OS use the first partition (the faster one), and create a giant fixed-sized virtual disk on the second one. If you do expect lots of traffic, use two.


That is absolutely terrible for security.

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Quasimojo

Is VMWare Workstation free as well?

No outside traffic to speak of, really. This server will merely provide various server environments for my own development and testing projects.

I'd love to. Unfortunately, I really just don't have a particular room for which heat would be an issue. Besides, when I do get the HTPC set up, I'll need it near the television. I could investigate some sort of media extender, I suppose.

Like I said, minimal web traffic. I'm more concerned with the performance of database and sharepoint servers, if they're VM's are running on the same spindle as the host OS. I'm starting to think I'll be ok with four drives total: a RAID 1 volume for the OS/VM's and a RAID 1 volume for media library and data files.

Thanks for all suggestions so far. Could you explain why the other suggestions above would be bad from a security standpoint?

__________________
"You might be a king, or a little street-sweeper,
But sooner or later, you dance with the Reaper."
-- Grim Reaper, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Manyak

Nope, but VMWare Server is, and it's a better option for you because it allows you to run the VM as a service, so you don't even feel like it's running while using the PC (no tray or taskbar icon, and it starts and stops automatically if you shut down or reboot the PC).


Yeah you really won't have to worry about speed at all, at least not for the web server.

RAID1 is fine for the data, but if you ever end up needing more than the space of a single drive then RAID5 is a better choice - you'll use less drives for the same amount of space. Just keep it in mind

It's just simply that you can't be 100% positive that your web server is 100% secure, especially since it's going to have open access to the internet on certain ports. It's always better to limit hackers as much as possible, and this is one way of doing it.

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Laforet

VMs are great for servers but difficult to manage when it comes to direct access to devices. I had my fair share of headaches setting up legacy hardware to co-exist that are missing either Windows or Linux drivers. For HTPC use I have not tried but I would anticipate some issues when it comes to VM-relayed audio The extra features and services used does not form any basis of security compromise. Server 2008 and Vista already ships with a much improved firewall. Unless you use a controllerless ADSL modem like I do, all the traffic still go through the router which is a lot harder to breach.

Manyak

The whole idea was to run the HTPC on the host OS and then have just the web server as a VM. The web server doesn't need any hardware access at all

And while the router does help, several ports will still need to be forwarded to the web server (which bypasses the router for the most part), and there's no stopping someone from executing unauthorized code through the server itself, especially since the code is still a work in progress.

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For Sale: [Conus] CM Storm Scout, TEC, WC, Laptop, A900, Model M, GPU, Audio, and a ton more!!

Laforet

That's for sure, my post is only a response to his part where he said one cannot use server OS on their HTPC. My approach is different since I perfer a flat structure with all the services under one OS and configured in the DMZ.