Using ESX and openfiler for NAS storage

To be honest with you, Openfiler, was the done thing, in it's day, but it's old, not maintained much anymore, and there are faster and better alternatives!

I would recommend OpenNAS or Nexenta.

If this is for Lab, you could create a VM of Openfiler and use that. (e.g. in loopback sort of style!)

Hi mate. Do you know how I would get a hold of either of those 2 and whether they are free to use?
Also, i had thought about doing it all in a virtual lab. If i deployed 2 virtual ESX hosts and one virtual opefiler (or one of the alternatives), could i attach both virtual ESX hosts to the virtual openfiler image then?

Thank you. I don't want to take liberties and go off subject but do you mind my asking. One of the things i liked about openfiler is the intuitive install and deployment guide that comes with it, do you know if any kind of guide comes with this system. And my last question is this.

I note that it can also be deployed to a bare metal server, if i chose this option would i need to have deployed ESX before hand? And, if i do chose to deploy it as a virtual machine, i guess from within wm workstation i just add system and point it at the downloaded ISO file?
Sorry if all this sounds kinda obvious to you.

They are plenty of guides and Nexenta is well documented.

Bare Metal is no OS. So ESX cannot be deployed.

That's correct, most VMware vExperts deploy test labs using VMs.

Hi, when i said deploy esx i meant deploy esxi 5.0 to the bare metal server...

Yes, ESXi must be deployed to Bare Metal.

Hi, when i deploy via wmware wkstation 9, what OS do i coose, any idea? I chose Linux 64bit but when i power on i get an error message saying:
No SOF interrupts have been received, this usb EHCI host controller is unusable

Any ideas?

What are you installing?

Hi, the software from the link. Not to worry as i removed the redundant peripherals and this got rid of the error.

Thanks again

Thanks for all of your help dude.