Fun unraid setup install#

Adding the data drives as datastore drives in the ESXi host, formatting them using VMFS, creating maximum-size virtual disks on each drive, and assigning the virtual disks to the unRAID VM.Let’s review the available solutions for configuring data drives for use in the unRAID VM: This concludes the unRAID-VM creation process, but it still has very little use as long as the data drives are not present, which is what the next section covers. Getting to the unRAID shell console in vSphere, and checking MAC address To tackle the first challenge – I decided to go for a solution that allows a VM to boot from a physical USB flash drive, using the Plop Boot Manager. Mordor 1.0 managed 3 data-drives (2TB each), and this is all the large drives I have, so I must have the unRAID VM working with the existing configuration and data, while minimizing the risk that something bad happens to my data during the process.Ĭreate an unRAID VM that boots from a USB flash drive using Plop Boot Manager I don’t have the luxury of having separate “production” and “staging” servers, to experiment without affecting my actual system and data.ESXi, running on VT-d-enabled hardware, has support for DirectPath I/O passthrough – but it is far from simple and/or straight forward to use it directly with physical drives… Thus, it makes sense to give unRAID complete and absolute control of the NAS hard-drives it will manage. The main function of unRAID is to manage storage.unRAID runs from a USB flash drive as its boot media, and persistent memory for configuration and plugins, but ESXi doesn’t offer a “boot a VM from USB flash drive” option, nor does it support simulating a USB flash drive as a VM booting media.So, what are the challenges in running unRAID as a VM? And what are some of the requirements I have from this set up and migration process?

Fun unraid setup install#

Install unRAID NAS OS as a VM on ESXi host to improve resource utilization of your home server!