Using the ReadyNAS as a VMware ESX Datastore

October 1, 2009 by chirpa
Filed under How-To's, News & Events, ReadyNAS in Business, VMware

Method 1 : ReadyNAS NFS share as a Datastore

FrontView: Enabling the NFS protocol

Go to the Services->Standard File Protocols tab.
Enable NFS by clicking the check-box beside it, then clicking Apply.

FrontView: Enable NFS for the share

Go to the Shares->Share Listing tab.
Click on the NFS icon beside the share you will be using (‘esx’ in our case).

Be sure Read/Write access is enabled, clicking Apply if needed.
Additional security settings can be applied here, such as root privilege.

vSphere: Add the new NFS datastore

Open up the vSphere client.
Navigate to the Configuration tab, and select the Storage option under the Hardware section.
Click on Add Storage in the upper-right corner.

For Storage Type, select the Network File System option. Click Next.

Fill in your ReadyNAS details; IP/Hostname, Share Name.
Choose a name for your datastore to be referenced in ESX. Click Next.

The next page will display the summary. If everything looks good, click Finish.

If no errors occurred (invalid hostname/share, permissions), you should now see your ReadyNAS share displayed in the vSphere client.

vSphere: Using the new datastore

Now that the ReadyNAS is connected to your ESX server, you can now create new Virtual Machines, and store their files directly on the ReadyNAS!

Method 2 : ReadyNAS iSCSI target as a Datastore

Coming Soon!

Need assistance?

If you have questions with anything in this article, head over to our community forums. The ReadyNAS team, including developers and support personnel, along with regular ReadyNAS users frequent the forum and are always willing to help out.