epicurean

I will get back to u when I return to the office after the public holidaya here

Thank you Andrew. I have 4 2 TB disks, and they are in RAID 5. I input those commands , but volume_1 cannot be found

Strange thing happened. When I rebooted my DSM, volume 1 became Volume 2. Was working fine all along. On nanoboot 5.0.3.1 Anyway i can't change it back without losing data?

much thanks...still learning so much from everyone! Using VMware player is very similar to using ESXi. The major difference here is that you can continue with the Win7 machine as is, add player as Windows application and run DSM under that. There is less risk involved as you will not be changing the WIndows 7 setup. Player is a little easier to setup and use, but is less flexible than ESXi. Obviously you will be dependent on the Windows host running. If, at a later stage, you wish to virtualise the Win7 machine, then it is straightforward to move the DSM machine from running under player to running under ESXi. Performance will depend on the hardware you are running on. There is an overhead to virtualisation and I think I have seen some people say that the DSM file transfer speed is a bit lower under ESXi but not that much. The big difference for me is that under ESXi, DSM doesn't have access to the SMART data from the disks. ESXi also doesn't allow DSM to spin the disks down when idle. I know that you have a 24/7 requirement and that there are different opinions on whether unloading the disks is desirable or not. If starting from scratch, I would be tempted to install DSM on bare metal, migrate the database to DSM if at all possible and create a Win7 VM under virtualbox. (note, I have tried virtualbox under DSM, itself in a VM, but haven't done that much with it myself). Backup? Unless anyone has better thoughts, I think that as you will be attaching real disks to the VM, then there isn't that much difference in your backup strategy but I'm willing to be corrected. Thanks for such an informative reply again. Supposing I want to reduce the number of pc, and do not mind starting from scratch, what would be the "ideal" setup for best performance? 1) DSM on bare metal, create win7 VM under virtualbox 2) install Esxi, Win 7 VM, DSM VM 3) any other suggestions? much thanks to everyone again.

Is medical information system software native on Win or Website base? If Website base, it's easier to maintain on Linux since Linux box uses less system resources and face much less virus, spyware and hacking. Of course, "less" doesn't mean "never" Are you already had backup script(s) in place? If using MyISAM, it's simply copy and paste database folder(s), so a simple script to copy same database folder to folder1, then folder2 and on next backup will be folder3 and delete folder1, rename 2 to 1 and 3 to 2, so always has 2 latest backups for 1 database. If using InnoDB, you might have to run MySQL_Dump in your script but the concept should be the same. Before MySQL version 5.5, MyISAM is the default storage engine when you create a table without explicitly specify the storage engine. From version 5.5, MySQL uses InnoDB as the default storage engine. HI, Yes the software is native on Windows, not a website base. I wish it could be used on linux but its a purely windows based software as most medical information systems are. Strangely there are no backup scripts in windows for this software, but I do have one to backup mysql database in DSM every 2 hours, so that is really useful. The software (Open Dental) is open source and has very regular updates , with an easy to use interface so I am still inclined to use a virtualised WIndows 7 PC setup as a peer to peer server(only for its mysql database). The photos, scanned images can all be on the DSM and shared as a file server. I also thought by virtualising, I can always trial a win 8.1 setup in the future for the same function, without needing to have it "live".

Awesome. And i thought u cannot get Smart data with Esxi

Thank you billat29. How is your method different from say...creating a esxi server from scratch ,and then putting the win 7 VM and the DSM VM in? ..or installing virtual box in my current bare metal DSM, and putting in a win 7 VM? Which has better performance overall, and easier to maintain and backup? much thanks...still learning so much from everyone!

Guys, I am sorry but I don't read French. What exactly does that spk file do? Create Esxi on a bare metal Xpenology server?

thank u again all for the replies. I am actually using a medical information system software that uses mysql as it's database. Although it does work in DSM, administering it in Win7 - which I have set it up as a peer to peer server for other workstations - is very much easier. I also wish to have DSM as a VM for its ability to backup the mysql database easily, and it's other neat packages. But as I am a complete noob with Esxi, want to try with this simple set up first.

Thanks so much for replying Christian. Would you be able to advise me which part of my hardware should passthrough for the xpenology NAS, and which I should use for the windows 7? I am using Windows 7 mainly for a Mysql server based software, whilst the NAS will server mostly as storage and as a file server. I have no experience at all with Esxi, is it very technical and difficult to implement? I don't understand what people saying about RDM and the other form Much thanks

I wish to exist an existing gigabyte G41M combo board with 8GB ram and a Core 2 Duo e6600 CPU, to build an ESXi server with 2 VMs only (windows 7, and xpenology). I have an ASM1061 which I intend to use the 2 SATA ports to for a datastore, whilst using the onbard 4 sata ports for a RAID 5 file server( xpenology). Will the hardware I have be able to run both VMs (both of which need to be running simultaneously) sufficiently? Any suggestions welcomed. thank you. PS - I have tried just DSM 5.0 xpenology on bare metal on this hardware and it works fine.

It is headless, but it has a client program (as seen in my screen capture) that is used to manage the VM's. From that program you also have remote desktop like control over VM's. And since I am only using the windows VM for WMC, I rarely have need to use the windows desktop, but when I do I just use vSphere client. I use WMC extenders to access WMC. [ I've had no problems with my esxi sever, but it is different than yours. Mine is an Intel based system, and all components have VTd support (direct IO). MY LSI raid card is not used by esxi, it is passed through to my DSM VM in IT mode. The array is at DSM level, not by the LSI card. Motherboard - Intel DQ77KB CPU - Intel i7 3770T RAM - 16GB OS - ESXI 5.5 on 60GB mSATA SSD Storage - LSI 9201-8i w/ 4 x 3TB WD Red (DSM SHR volume) and 1x4TB (eSATA for backups). VM1 - Synology DSM 5 - 4493 w/ LSI card passed through. VM2 - Windows 8.1 w/WMC set to 500GB iSCSI target of Synology VM for WMC recording. I haven't gotten around to finishing my case for it, but here's its current state http://goo.gl/N1Qs9m edit: the motherboard used in those pics was the DH61AG, which I used for testing prior to swapping over my other motherboard. I want to do almost exactly what you did Diverge. Setup Esxi, a windows 7 virtual box, and a xpenology virtual box. Also wish to pass through the onboard sata ports to the NAS part. Can you share your sequence and how you did it? I have managed to setup a bare metal one for xpenology(as a trial), but trying to see how I can do it with virtualisation. Much thanks!

I do not have the "vendor" file in my boot drive. Its a nanoboot formatted USB drive

Much thanks shteve!

Hi shteve, Can you elaborate more about mounting existing drives as Raw Device Mapping( RDM) ? How is that done. Is there any particular guide that was most useful in converting your bare metal to ESXi , without data loss? Much thanks

Intel core 2 duo e6600, Gigabyte G41M combo board, 8 GB dyanet ddr3 ram, onboard vga, asm 1061 esata + sata card, 3com gigabit PCI NIC and built in motherboard marvell network controller, 2 X 1 TB WD Black drives in RAID 1, , 4 x 2TB seagate drives in RAID 5, Sandisk 4GB usb drive Bare metal setup : nanoboot 5.031, DSM 5-04558 update 5