Hi all
I bought a Dell T20 server last week and I've got the following installed:
120 GB SSD
1 TB 7200 rpm HDD
2 x 2 TB 5400 rpm HDDs
Plan A
So, I stuck ESXi 6.0 on it and then I'm running Server 2012 R2 within ESXi.
My plan is to use Windows Server 2012 to run Emby/Plex as a media server, and then install a NAS solution as well (FreeNAS/OMV/Xpenology) to back up 2-3 PCs over the network.
My question is basically about the risks of using operating systems as virtual machines. It seems fairly simple to set them up and automate backups of my PCs. But since I have to allocate drive space to them, what happens if my VM crashes? Is it possible to get direct access to that data (the actual files/folders)?
I'm concerned that a VM used for backing up could crash, and then there is no way to restore it unless I've backed up the entire VM. (i.e. my files will be trapped within a datastore or whatever.)
If so, is there a way round this?
Plan B
The other option is to remove ESXi, install Server 2012 directly onto the HDD, and backup my PCs that way. Then I don't know what the virtualisation options are; can I stick ESXi on top of Server 2012? Is it free? (I'd still like to play with VMs if possible.)
Apologies if that doesn't make sense, but I'm unsure about the reliability of VMs and don't want to find that all my data has been lost because the backed up files were kept within that VM.
Thanks in advance!
I bought a Dell T20 server last week and I've got the following installed:
120 GB SSD
1 TB 7200 rpm HDD
2 x 2 TB 5400 rpm HDDs
Plan A
So, I stuck ESXi 6.0 on it and then I'm running Server 2012 R2 within ESXi.
My plan is to use Windows Server 2012 to run Emby/Plex as a media server, and then install a NAS solution as well (FreeNAS/OMV/Xpenology) to back up 2-3 PCs over the network.
My question is basically about the risks of using operating systems as virtual machines. It seems fairly simple to set them up and automate backups of my PCs. But since I have to allocate drive space to them, what happens if my VM crashes? Is it possible to get direct access to that data (the actual files/folders)?
I'm concerned that a VM used for backing up could crash, and then there is no way to restore it unless I've backed up the entire VM. (i.e. my files will be trapped within a datastore or whatever.)
If so, is there a way round this?
Plan B
The other option is to remove ESXi, install Server 2012 directly onto the HDD, and backup my PCs that way. Then I don't know what the virtualisation options are; can I stick ESXi on top of Server 2012? Is it free? (I'd still like to play with VMs if possible.)
Apologies if that doesn't make sense, but I'm unsure about the reliability of VMs and don't want to find that all my data has been lost because the backed up files were kept within that VM.
Thanks in advance!