Connect Synology NAS to VMware ESXi vCenter Server [2 Methods - NFS vs iSCSI]

You can connect a #synology NAS to a VMware environment using both NFS and iSCSI. NFS uses the File Based protocol, while #iscsi will use the Block Based protocol.
We'll go through each step by step, and also given you a definition of the difference between #nfs and iSCSI.
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[@p.chuckmoralesesquire3965]

I added my first ISCSI target to our vcenter and I'm pretty much a newb, but trying to enable something I think is called ISCSI multipathing. Any tips or videos on that? I know the guy who worked at this job before me was able to do it with these ISCSI targets and make it so more of our VMWare hosts can use it at once. They're pretty old Promise brand Vess 2U but I'm not sure if the config is done in VMWare or the target's web console ?

[@CaptAlien1]

Thank you for helping me with the VCP exam.

[@gaz1978]

Great video really helped cement the terminology.

[@piotrprs572]

Great clip... simple and understandable. 😀

[@TechWithEmilio]

Glad you liked it

[@engr.omermasood7669]

Excellent demo..!

[@emiliogarcia8693]

Great video and very well explained , I fix my issue, thanks for sharing 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@dineshdinu4166]

I got new tech friend that is you ,glad to see you

[@HimanshuDwivedi-c8u]

Really very informative video

[@wonheeryu87]

I have two esxi hosts with essential plus license. Can i use nfs mounted on both host and use esxi HA feature?

[@pedrotoce]

Me funciono, gracias.

[@AdamWooten-w6b]

Do you have a training vid for setting up a Dell Unity using iSCSI to esxi 8?

[@nourestani]

I'm trying to set up what you just did but I'm not sure which one performed better could you please help me to understand and also is there latency since the network is involved for VMs

[@nonyabidness4479]

DSM 6.x supported NFS 4.1 multipathing.... they removed it with DSM7 (I understand you can turn it on via SSH "unofficially" but I havent tested it because downgrading DSM from 7.x to 6.x and retaining data is stressful and not officially supported.). In my experience NFS performed better... with NFS 4.1. Synology iSCSI implementation has had issues when I used it. There would be internal file locks inside the synology that I would have to ssh into and release/delete a file. Synology support wasnt helpful... I figured it out before they did. Additionally when you provision an iSCSI LUN you are stranding all of that space. If you carve a 1TB LUN and have 500MB on it (thick provisioned of course) that 1TB isnt available for anything else. If you make it a thin LUN and fill up 1TB worth of space then delete it all you will have to use unmap to tell the storage that space isnt being used anymore so it can give that space back to the free storage amount. NFS you make a directory and a file and the space used is the size of the file. You delete the file and you get the space back. You can see those shares via SMB as well .. so if you wanted to manipulate it outside of Vmware you can do that too. (The file browser in Vmware seems like its from the 90s.) Then you get into the fun stuff which is vaai xcopy(Vmware)/ODX (Microsoft). If you tell the array to copy something from one location to another inside the array it will calculate a token that describes it and it will move it internally without any traffic on your NICS. So those copies will happen at internal array speeds. You could have 1Gb nic but the thruput could show 4Gb because it is happening inside the array. iSCSI is native.. you can verify that in the hardware acceleration column.. nfs might need a plugin for it to work.

[@C3Cooper]

A good basic, comprehensive intro. But, maybe should have mentioned Synology's NFS Plug-in for VAAI. Also relating to NFS, people should be advised NOT to select the "Enable data checksum..." option on the file share.

[@ABH-fh6tn]

Hi Can this be used in migrating VM from one host to another that are in different vCenter. for example I have an environment with version 7 in an end of life hardware and then moving all its VMs to a new hardware environment that will run version 8, can both environment connect to the NAS and then clone the VMs from the old one to the NAS so that the new one can access the clone to copy and load to the new environment, an then turn off the vm from the old vcenter?

[@mohamadzakwanmohdsubki4652]

what is the top speed between synology NAS and ESXi?

[@nonyabidness4479]

If you have fast enough disks it will fill up all of the paths to 100%. I.e if you have 4 drives (lets call it a raid 0 for math/parity/easy reasons) that can only move 50MB/s at your IO load thats 200MB of aggregate bandwidth. If you have 4 1Gb Nics that 400MB/s thruput but you arent going to be able to do that because you only have 200MB/s of disk performance. I run 8 drive arrays and it can fill up 400MB/s reliably. I added dual port 10Gb nics to mine and I think I have gotten up to 750MB/s. Now VAAI Xcopy(vmware)/ODX (Microsoft) is not limited by connectivity. If you copy data from one location to another it will move it internally without moving anything thru the nics. Now esx and iscsi has an issue where their vmkernal nic can only move 600-800MB/s even if you have faster network connectivity. There are other settings to optimize higher speeds but for "normal" consumers you wont have to worry about that until you get into the 10Gb+ region with multiple paths.

[@kevinkirk3156]

Great video

[@ronald0122]

what is better?

[@jmorris999]

iSCSI is direct read/writes to the disk. NFS has a software level in the middle. iSCSI will almost always be better if not always.