@olivierlambert I think some kind of registration would be a great idea. I'd also love some kind of way to kick back to you guys for the excellent work you've put into these products that's not a subscription. XCP-NG + XO have let me span my home lab from my basement into a rented office space and into a dedicated box.

I don't generate revenue so a subscription for this would be out of budget, I'd love to kick back something for the work you guys have put in. While not a perfect example, something like Untangle's home license at $50 / $150 per year depending on features would help fill in the gap.

Keeping a registration option to remove the nag in lab environments would still be a nice have

@vsaad that might be your limit. Those old PERC cards aren't particularly performant unfortunately.

You could try passing the whole device through to the VM: https://forums.lawrencesystems.com/t/xenserver-hard-drive-whole-disk-passthrough-with-xcp-ng/3433

That might help, but I'm not sure if that method still works.

I've been running TrueNAS for hypervisor storage since version 9, it has been rock solid since. I cannot say quite the same about SCALE (though this was alpha).

If you just want storage and no extra services, go core, it'll do everything you need it to do. If you decide you need more, it's easier to go from Core -> Scale than the other way around.

@mauzilla My R720XD came with the rear drives, they were optional from Dell during configuration so I try to get them included already when possible. You can grab the parts and install them yourself too.

They used to be a bit more expensive, looks like $50 now: https://www.ebay.com/itm/174894761780

They're "R720xd rear flex bays" if you wanted to look for them on not ebay, make sure if comes with the cables. I believe the cables run from the backplane to the rear flex bay on the R720.

@vsaad that might be your limit. Those old PERC cards aren't particularly performant unfortunately.

You could try passing the whole device through to the VM: https://forums.lawrencesystems.com/t/xenserver-hard-drive-whole-disk-passthrough-with-xcp-ng/3433

That might help, but I'm not sure if that method still works.

I would uninstall the XCP-NG tools, reboot, then install Citrix's tools, then reboot again.

Then try running something like Crystal Disk Mark against the second drive.

If you don't have GB you'll be limited to pretty much 10MB/s per client even with bonding. Bonding won't increase the speed to a single client, but would let you serve 3 clients at 10MB/s each.

Do you have an extra PCI slot? You could get a GB NIC pretty cheaply.

I use these, they do require a free login from Citrix: https://fileservice.citrix.com/download/secured/support/article/CTX235403/downloads/citrix-vm-tools-9.2.3.zip

Did you use these? https://github.com/xcp-ng/win-pv-drivers/releases

@vsaad Awesome, thank you! Wanted to make sure that was the case.

Did you install the Management Agent? If so, which did you use?

Personally I've found Citrix's to be the most performant.

@vsaad

What does the Disk page look like for the VM?

In the current setup are you using the PERC6/i as a standard Storage Repository and then creating a disk on that SR?

You mentioned some pass through options before so I want to confirm we're working with a "vanilla" install here.

@vsaad

These old servers are getting very long in the tooth when it comes to VMs, they're missing key instructions sets.

That aside, with a newer server you could pass the RAID card directly through to a VM, but the 2900 series pre-dates that technology.

Ideally, what are you trying to do here and how is it setup currently? There's a few ways to accomplish this based on those answers.

@ashinobi The only time I've needed to get into the UEFI was to set a specific resolution. If you're using UEFI it's ESC to get into it.

@mauzilla You're correct on requiring an HBA, you want to avoid running ZFS on top of RAIDed disks. It really wants raw access to drives.

You mentioned not wanting to use a flashed card in production, totally get it. I did use this guide to get several working https://fohdeesha.com/docs/perc.html and use them in my R720xd system now.

If you opt for an LSI card, you'll eat up an HBA and you may need different cabling to accommodate the different length now.