Access storage directly from guest vm

  • 24 August 2016
  • 3 replies
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I'm new to ntnx and have a what I hope is a simple question. Is it possible to access the nfs data store from inside a vm that is running in the ntnx env?

i have a vm that will need tb's of storage but I don't want to create giant vmdks for it.

Chris

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Userlevel 7
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You probably would want to look at Acropolis File Services and the new Block Services features in the platform. No NFS today in AFS, but I believe it is on the roadmap. ABS is preview, but would allow you to consume the storage via iSCSI.
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The file system behind our NFS share presented to the hypervisor is not a general purpose file system. It has been designed from the gound up to store hypervisor disk files like VMDKs in case of VMware ESXi.

Nutanix therefore does not recommend using it to store generic NFS data on it. Your best bet is to create the required size of VMDK and assign it to the GuestOS.

What are the reasons not to do that?
Userlevel 1
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We have many database servers using multipble VMDKs from 1-4 TB each. No issues with that and it keeps things simple. If you have reasons not to do this, then the ABS option would be a supported way to give disk to a VM directly.