Previously I discussed using NexentaStor in the data center for SMB use cases. This one is focused on those of us with home labs that want to try out everything offered by a NetApp array(Deduplication, Snapshots, Clones, NFS, CIFS, iSCSI). To be fair, you could substitute NetApp with EMC(or other storage vendors), but I’ll use NetApp in this case, as EMC’s made the Celerra VSA available to the public. NetApp requires you to be a customer to use their simulator(would love to see that policy changed). I’m sure there are a number of things that NetApp offers, including hardware and management options that are not included with NexentaStor, but this post is strictly from a storage feature(s) perspective.
One of the coolest things about NexentaStor, is its ability to support legacy hardware. I’m currently using a five year old HP DL380 G4 as a storage array for my home lab. I have six 72GB 15k drives in a RAIDZ(RAID-5) pool. This is more than enough storage for what I need in my lab. Add onto that deduplication plus compression and you’ll be able to do a lot with the smaller drives. Current VSA’s are great for familiarizing yourself with what is offered on the higher end arrays, but for those of us who need native performance on a home lab budget, will be able to do so with NexentaStor and some low priced hardware.
I’m using iSCSI with my vSphere lab and the performance is excellent. I’m able to replicate my snapshots asynchronously to my ix2-200. Cloning of an iSCSI LUN is easy to do and gives you the ability to non-destructively test your lab VM’s. So much is possible with this product.
In future posts, I’ll discuss more in-depth my lab setup and what I’ve been able to accomplish with NexentaStor on legacy hardware.
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Hi,
I’ve recently found this product (nexentaStor 3.0.3) and trying to install on a DL380 G4 but it keeps hanging on Loading Kernel. I’ve had a look around and found the -Kv switch to boot with to show what its stuck on. I’ve tried this on three Dl380 G4 which i want to use and they ALL stop on the same bit.
PCI Express – Device pci8086,32a@0,2,pcieb3
pcieb3 is /pci@0,0/pci8086,3595@2/pci8086,32a@0,2
how did you manage to install it on a dl380 G4?
Have you tried removing any of the PCI components? I have two PCI devices, a SCSI card and a 1GB NIC. I would remove any PCI(even the network card) and see if you can get the installation to complete. After installation, add each device back one at a time. Let me know what happens.
There was a SmartArray 642 in which I have removed. The network ofcourse is onboard. I’ve tried to disable the Nics within the bios and also USB. On reboot the same error occured.
I then continued to disable everything that I didn’t want to use and I still got the same result.
After that failed I then updated the 380′s with the HP firmware 9.0 CD which is from june 2010 i believe it was the latest on the website as of yesterday (28/07/2010)
Are you using your PCI Nic device instead of the onboards? Also are you using the PCI scsi device instead of your onbaord SCSI?
quick update, I had another dl380. This has older RAID firmware versions and 72.8gb 15k disks instead of 146gb 10k disks and I put in the latest version of NexentaStor and thought I’d give it ago and the damn thing started installing! So now i have a dl380 with older firmware and smaller disks which it installs on. Now I have to check everything on the working 380 (bios/firmware version etc) and try and replicate on the other dl380.. let you know of my results.
That is really weird. I use the 72GB drives. Not sure why the 146GB drives don’t work. The inboard NICs should be fine. It’s sounding like a controller issue. The 146GB G4 is able to install other os’s without any trouble?
After a day of restoring firmware back to the same as the working one I came in this morning with fresh thinking and thought I’d check out the HW.. opened the working box and non working and all sudden BAM! oh the Riser cards look a little different.. The one with the working server looked a little older. I thought oh that makes sense then since its stopping on the Pci-express part. So i exchanged it in the non working server and it worked straight away.
I’ve tried to build the server with the working Riser and then put in the other riser card will see how I go.