How are people managing storage in a virtual Windows system?

[bpeitzke]

I am testing VirtualBox on a couple of servers in my home office LAN. This is a low-budget operation, and in fact my focus is on low-cost virtualization for small businesses - thus no high-dollar SANs. In my testing so far, I have simply mapped a drive in the virtual Windows server instance, to the actual data volume of the physical host server. For data redundancy I have been synchronizing the data directory trees between the two servers.

I am curious how others are handling data storage in similar virtual Windows systems.

Grateful for any feedback.

Bob

[Bsoft]

Same Target: SOHO but more flexible solution i guess

Host: Ubuntu LTS headless fakeRaid 1 with Samba as PDC and optionally: --DHCP server --DNS server -LDAP server --WebDav Server

Guest: Whatever but easy to Teleport
On 1 Windows Guest I often put Cobian to take care of local and ftp backups

cheers

[bpeitzke]

My main question is not regarding specific backup methods, but rather how & where the user data is stored. My simple method has been to map a drive in each virtual OS to the physical host machine's data volume, thus no virtualization of data storage. I rely on a synchronization utility running either in the VM or directly on the host, to replicate the data volume between two physical host machines. Thus the operations of (a) moving a VM between hosts and (b) making the user data available to a VM on the other host, are totally separate. I just wanted to know whether this is an accepted practice, or there is a better way. Somehow I just can't see allocating a huge virtual disk file to each VM and keeping its user data inside that. But maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture.

Appreciate any suggestions.

Bob

[Perryg]

NAS is probably the cheapest way to achieve what you are wanting to do. As long as you understand the ramifications and the drawbacks I see no reason why it will not work for you. Although I would suggest a dedicated VM for this purpose that is up to you.

[Bsoft]

@Perryg
IMHO low-cost Nas are too slow for anything but backup and media server... (Actually just realizing i have a web server on it too ! LOL )

@bpeitzke
My answer was not backup oriented so I maybe I was not very clear; let me try with more details.

Have in your VMs a Linux one (in my case its a headless Ubuntu and it's the Host). On that linux activate "Samba" which let you share directories the "windows" way. You can even easily set it up as a Windows NT 4 Domain Controller. So you have a domain with Logon etc.. etc... and of course overall common access to whatever directories you want on that machine. Since mine is the host machine its done. If its a Guest, probably a share on the physically linked to the host machine's data volume would do it; as for performance...

NB: SOHO means you have at least the Pro version of the Windows OS, otherwise you have to rely on .cmd or .bat to attach the network drives

[Perryg]

Well short of declaring that you hijacked this thread Bsoft, the reply was to the OP. It has been and still is a valid storage route if speed is not an issue and cost is. The ramifications and the drawbacks are well known and then you make your decision.

[bpeitzke]

Bsoft, >>If its a Guest, probably a share on the physically linked to the host machine's data volume would do it<< If I interpret this correctly, you are concurring with my method of storing the user data directly on the physical host machine's disk(s), and linking to it from within the guest OS.

Discussion of LINUX or Windows guest VM's is helpful, but a different issue.

One of my concerns about this storage model of data on physical host outside the guest, is that moving the guest VM to a different host is independent of moving or synchronizing the user data, so when I move a VM I have two separate procedures to do. I can live with this, but was wondering how others handle it

[Bsoft]

After Perrig's comment i dunno if i can still expressed an opinion... strange forum, especially for non English speaking members struggling with the acronym ...

To the point:
I concur if you mean data are not inside the vms but i have a different way to do it for many reasons .
-- What do u do if u change the location of the guest to another machine ? If it's on the same LAN i do nothing but start the guest on the new host
-- You can't access the data from different guests simultaneously
-- You can't use your full host disk capacity with any guest

But, you just asked how are people managing storage in a virtual Windows system?
Well they probably buy a Windows server OS, mount it on a physical machine and then do approx the same setup with shares for the guests.
Apart from the price the only small difference is that my headless ubuntu server as a host uses less than 120 of memory to run.
Just kidding, Active Directory is a killer in a SOHO LAN and makes the 100% Windows solution much better