VMware ESXi serving SMB to a windows network?

[Storm16]

I have a friend who has a small business. He has about half a dozen windows machines on the desktops. On the backend, he has a fairly beefy server (AMD Phenom X3, 8GB RAM, 3TB RAID array). He is running VMware Server 2.0 on a CentOS 5.x box, and he has two XP VMs on this box. He also has a very large partition on this machine, which he is serving out as several shares through Samba to the desktops.

Unfortunately, VMware Server has gotten a little, um, flaky with current Linux versions. I have had problems with it on a Debian installation, and he had a power outage a couple of weeks ago, and the server wouldn't come back up for two or three days. Then he called me.

Now I would like to convert him over to VMware ESXi (either 3.5 or 4.0, since the machine is 64-bit), but there remains the problem of the samba shares. Is it possible for esxi to have a second or subsequent data store and serve out shares to the windows machines? I had thought about building another VM to serve these files out, but that doesn't feel right. It seems like another layer of obfuscation, plus he is a bit nervous about trusting his archives (some go back to 1992) to VMware, with the experience he had with Server. Does anyone know of another (better?) way?

Thanks,

--Storm

[weinstein5]

Best practice is not to have ESX or ESxi to act as a File share - the best way would be to create a VM and have that share out the SMB datastores -

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[AndreTheGiant · Accepted solution]

On ESX and ESXi there isn't the "server part" of file server protocols.

And as written before, the best choice is create a VM that act as a file server.

Andre

[Storm16]

That was another option, however, it felt like another layer of obfuscation between my friend and his data. After all the problems he has had (and I as well) with VMware server, I have to ask this. Is ESXi reliable enough to run the data in this manner? I'm sure he is not going to be appy if he takes a power hit and can't get his VMs back online, like happened to him with VMware server, he's going to be unhappy.

Thanks,

--storm

[mcowger]

Literally thousands of companies (including mine) do this with terabytes of missions critical data.

VMware server is a toy/hobbiest product sharing very little with the enterprise class ESXi product.

Its like asking if its OK to race with a Lambhorghini Gallardo becase your VW Polo was so slow (they are both made by VW)- fundamentally different class of product.

--Matt

VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek, Storage Nerd

[weinstein5]

All of the fortune 100 companies rely on esx and esxi for business

critical applications

Sent from my iPhone

On May 26, 2010, at 6:17 PM, Storm16 <communities-emailer@vmware.com

[cincinnerdi]

I'm converting my 5th business from VMware Server to ESXi Essentials in the coming week. Two were on CentOS and 3 on Ubuntu server. Performance and features are just not in the same league. ESXi will scream. However, if you're using the same hardware, check for hardware compatibility, especially that the RAID controller and NICs are supported.

Scott