vmware

VMware hosting - NAS storage or SSD

John

• 2 min read
VMware hosting - NAS storage or SSD

I have been hosting VMs on my ESXi hosts for 7 years. During this time I have tried different setups. I am comparing the pros and cons of each setup. I am using the free license, with its limitations.

Initially I was hosting VMs in the internal SSD of the host, without a good backup strategy. I quickly scrapped this method.

My next setup was putting my VM directories in my Synology share, exposing it via NFS. This simplifies my backup plan, as all VM directories are automatically backed up weeks along with other NAS data (assuming HyperBackup recognizes all the changes). The downside is that whenever my NAS goes down, my VMs go down as well. They were also slower because my NAS had RAID 5 HDDs.

Another issue is that I am not backing up the host USB, so when the USB dies, it takes some work to reconfigure everything.

I didn't want my VMs to be tied to the NAS, especially some of them need to continue functioning when my NAS reboots. So I migrated them back to the internal SSD of the host, but set up Active Backup for Business to back up the VMs. There are a few configurations to be done to enable the backup, and I am never quite sure if I can restore the VMs successfully.

Pros and cons of using NAS storage

  • No need to set up backup
  • But not sure if HyperBackup actually recognize all the changes
  • Testing on another host is easy
  • BTRFS allows more testing options
  • Need to manually reconfigure each VM when restoring to a different host, or when the host dies
  • VMs are shut down when the NAS is shut down. I have some docker containers I need running independent of NAS
  • I am reluctant to update NAS
  • Using more NAS bandwidth and more IOPS

Pros and cons of using internal SSD

  • Faster VM startup, and I can actually use swaps for each VM
  • Setting up backup is not straightforward
  • Backup only runs once a day, thus I will lose the data in between
  • I rarely test VM restore, so I am not confident it would work
  • Restoring VMs take a long time
  • ABB takes care of the configuration, so restoration is straightforward
  • I can restart NAS without worrying about VMs
  • NAS is not a single point of failure
  • Active Backup is proprietary, and I have trouble migrating it between NASes

Summary

While using internal SSD has its downsides, it is a more robust solution overall, as it reduces interdependency between devices. The key is to test restoration to ensure it works.