We have a Netapp filer that is used for file sharing using SMB 2.0
I would like to virtualize file services since I have all other servers virtualized
I have come across two solutions to do this under ESXi 5.1
- Use the file services role under Windows Server 2008 R2 or Server 2012
- Use Melio Enterprise http://www.sanbolic.com/web_serving.htm. This option seems to provide some nice features over using Windows Server alone
I only have three files shares with one being 2TB, the other two are much smaller. If I do virtualize the file server I will need to either use virtual RDMs or use Microsoft's iSCSI initiator to present a volume larger than 2TB.
Any thoughts on virtualizing file services under ESXi 5.1?