Migrating from Ubuntu 16.04 to ESXi

[KirbyTech]

I have a server that is not doing much but I want to keep going, it has a software RAID(1) using mdadm that I would ideally like to keep in tack and pass through ESXi to the Ubuntu vm. 

 

So currently it is just a physical machine with no VM's on it, I want to clone it then install ESXi and put the image onto the ESXi host. I can't seem to find a good way to do it without losing my RAID. Suggestions or should I just move the data off onto a different location then install everything fresh and reset it all up?

[unijab]

Buy new disk.

Setup new disk with esxi.  

Then pass the raw mdadm disks thru to the VM.

[Kered124]

Have a look at clonezilla.

[KirbyTech]

12 minutes ago, Kered124 said:

Have a look at clonezilla.

It's not a matter or cloning it, I can do that... It is getting the RAID to pass through correctly. Clonezilla is not going to work for that.

[KirbyTech]

40 minutes ago, unijab said:

Buy new disk.

Setup new disk with esxi.  

Then pass the raw mdadm disks thru to the VM.

Will the RAID data be preserved or will it be a blank array? Know of any guides or docs that are useful for this? 

[Kered124]

Operating systems normally ignore raid, and just see a hard drive. That is what clonezilla should see; a hard drive, and it will make an image of that hard drive that you can visualize.

 

EDIT: I re-read your original post and noticed it says software raid... I am sure there is documentation on how to do this; I'm just not sure how.

[dalekphalm]

21 hours ago, Kered124 said:

Operating systems normally ignore raid, and just see a hard drive. That is what clonezilla should see; a hard drive, and it will make an image of that hard drive that you can visualize.

 

EDIT: I re-read your original post and noticed it says software raid... I am sure there is documentation on how to do this; I'm just not sure how.

He's likely using MDADM Linux software RAID.

 

22 hours ago, KirbyTech said:

It's not a matter or cloning it, I can do that... It is getting the RAID to pass through correctly. Clonezilla is not going to work for that.

I'd suggest cloning the partitions into an image file backup. Then, Prep the VM, and clone the partition images back to the new VHD you create for the Ubuntu VM.

[Jay Deah]

Esxi does not support software raid. Sorry you need to use hardware raid if you want protection on your Vmfs datastores. There are other options but those are aimed at large installations that have multi hosts etc and all of them would be far more expensive than getting a cheap hardware raid card

[dalekphalm]

10 minutes ago, Jay Deah said:

Esxi does not support software raid. Sorry you need to use hardware raid if you want protection on your Vmfs datastores. There are other options but those are aimed at large installations that have multi hosts etc and all of them would be far more expensive than getting a cheap hardware raid card

Kind of. You will need SOMETHING for ESXi itself and at least one VM VHD. So, for example, a small RAID1 array. 

 

But you can actually use a VM to host a software RAID array that uses iSCSI to pass the array back to ESXi to use as a large data store. 

 

You would need an HBA, and you then would use PCIe Passthrough to give the HBA straight to the VM. There are some interesting FreeNAS builds that use this. 

 

Totally not typical though, and you either STILL need a hardware RAID card, or you just run the risk of drive failure with the datastore hosting the first VM. 

 

I do use FreeNAS in a VM on ESXi with a passthrough HBA but I don’t pass the ZFS array back to ESXi. 

 

I use a pair of RAID1 arrays as my VM datastore, using a hardware Dell H200. 

[Jay Deah]

the problem with all those solutions is when you look at where the points of failure are, youre often not any better off than running a single drive anyway as they contain multiple SPOFs.(as you already realise and point out)

 

basically if you care about data loss... go hardware raid... always...

 

 

[dalekphalm]

31 minutes ago, Jay Deah said:

the problem with all those solutions is when you look at where the points of failure are, youre often not any better off than running a single drive anyway as they contain multiple SPOFs.(as you already realise and point out)

 

basically if you care about data loss... go hardware raid... always...

 

 

A well setup array in ZFS or Storage Spaces will have just as - if not more - fault tolerance as compared to a hardware RAID card. Especially since the data integrity fail-safe features in, for example ZFS, add an additional level of tolerance.

 

Hardware RAID is still important in many situations, though - such the OS drive and datastore for an ESXi host - situations where it's impractical or impossible to use ZFS (whether Linux or BSD).

[Jay Deah]

my comments were specifically about ESXi, sorry for confution.