WS2012 Storage - Creating a Storage Pool and a Storage Space (aka Virtual Disk) using PowerShell

In my previous posts I talked about how to use NFS and iSCSI technologies hosted on Windows Server 2012 and how to deploy those to my Home Lab ESXi servers.

• WS2012 Storage - iSCSI Target Server - Create an iSCSI target using PowerShell
• WS2012 Storage - iSCSI Target Server - Configuring an iSCSI Initiator on VMware vSphere 5.1
• WS2012 Storage - NFS Server - Configure NFS for VMware vSphere 5.1

One point I did not covered was: How to do the Initial setup with the physical disk, Storage pooling and the creating the Virtual Disk(s) ?

The cost to acquire and manage highly available and reliable storage can represent a significant part of the IT budget. Windows Server 2012 addresses this issue by delivering a sophisticated virtualized storage feature called Storage Spaces as part of the WS2012 Storage platform. This provides an alternative option for companies that require advanced storage capabilities at lower price point.

FreeNas 8.3 - Creating a RAID volume and Configure iSCSI

FreeNAS is a tiny Open Source FreeBSD-based operating system which provides free Network-Attached Storage (NAS) services (CIFS, FTP, NFS, ...). It supports sharing across Windows, Apple, and UNIX-like systems.

FreeNAS 8 includes ZFS, which supports high storage capacities and integrates file systems and volume management into a single piece of software.

Overview

In the following post I will cover the following points:

• Introduction
• Terminology
• Raid Volume Configuration
• Connecting to the FreeNas HTTP Interface
• Creating the RAID Volume
• iSCSI Configuration
• Adding a Portal
• Adding an Initiator
• Adding a Target
• Adding a File Extent
• Adding a Target / Extent association
• Enabling the iSCSI Service
• Configuring the iSCSI Initiator on VMware vSphere 5.1

Introduction

Using FreeNAS 8.3, I need to create a RAID Volume, configure iSCSI and present it to my VMware VSphere 5.1 environment.

Note: If you are not familiar with some of the iSCSI terms used below (target, initiator, extent...) please check the following webpage: http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/ISCSI

Overview of my iSCSI Lab Architecture

Simple RAID Cheat Sheet

Level	Redundancy	Disk Required	Faster Reads	Faster Writes
RAID 0	No	N	Yes	Yes
RAID 1	Yes	2	Yes	No
RAID 5	Yes	N+1	Yes	No
RAID 10	Yes	N*2	Yes	Yes
JBOD	No	N/A	No	No