This is going to be a working document as I begin my journey toward Nutanix.
With selling the former esxi05, I have now ordered the USC-MSTOR-M2 drive holders I need. These are basically dual m.2 boot devices that do not use the HBA. Shopping around, the best price for these I’ve seen was $89.99. So if you don’t know, I just browse eBay and r/homelabsales for that once in a lifetime deal. It’s one of the ways I’ve gotten such incredible deals on some other hardware.
I digress. So I was browsing, looking for the USC-MSTOR-M2 and I make an offer of 4@$70, which after taxes came up to $300. I went into this _hoping_ to pay no more than $75, but figured $80. While browsing, I notice a name I instantly recognize, and know that he sells on Reddit, and will knock off money from the eBay price. I actually know two different people/companies who sell on Reddit and eBay, and going direct is always cheaper. I also have this seller’s cell phone and can text when looking for something. I see he has 3 on eBay, so I shoot him a text and ask him how much for all 3. He make me a price, which is just under $75, and I tell him to send the invoice, and cancel the offer.
I know some people would have waited to see what the other seller responded with. But my reasoning was this. That seller had them listed for $89.95/each. They have over 20 in stock, and at least per eBay, they have sold over 50. So I expected them to either outright reject my offer, or counter with $79.95. In my mind, I got exactly what I wanted to pay. Bonus, I asked if he by chance had 4, he said yup, and total cost? $299.44! Same price I would have paid had I won the auction on eBay with the $70 offer. Exactly the same. I didn’t loose out, I came out ahead, and am continuing to support a small business I know. Who? Micro International, u/karmaawhoree for those interested. Him and u/juddle1414 are the best sellers I’ve encountered, and they get the majority of my business whenever I’m looking for parts. They are my go to’s.
So, long story short, 4x USC-MSTOR-M2 and 8x UCS-I240G (can’t remember exact part, will update later. But the Intel SSDSCKJB240G7R 240GB M.2 SATA 6.0 Gbps). Each host will get 1x USC-MSTOR-M2 and 2x drives. These are NOT RAID, as I’ve said. One will be used for the Hypervisor, the other will be used to store the CVM.
Speaking of CVM. Here comes the ghetto part. Looks like I am going to have to edit the CVM HCL file to support all of my drives. Apparently, if a drive is not supported, will not work with Nutanix. So a little tricking will be required. I have someone giving me Nutanix tips, and I’ve asked him. But I think it requires editing the hcl.json file from the installation package, adding my drives to that, saving, then packaging everything back up. Then upload this via Foundation for the installation. He hasn’t replied yet, so when he does, I’ll let you know if I was right, or not.
As I said, this will be a work in progress. So check back. I’ll be adding more as I start the process, including detailing my initial svMotion plan.
Migration – 2024.06.06 – Day 1
Started off by cleaning up my VMs. Went through and removed VMs no longer in use, cleaned up snapshots, etc. Found a few dangling .vmdk’s along the way. I only svMotion’d a few VMs. No real need to hurry, I’m not starting this until, 6/15/24 so plenty of time. Really, depends on my work schedule. The parts are scheduled to arrive Monday, 6/10, so maybe if I have a free night before… But I know what will happen. I will budget myself say 4 hours. But 10pm comes around, have had multiple problems, still no where close to being finished. What would I do? What would any of us do? Stay up until everything is resolved. Then worry about everything else later. You know, sleep.
If this were 15, 20 years ago, no problem. Hell, if I were in my early 30s still, no problem. But I’m 46. Pulling all nighters, while I can do it, the next day I am miserable, and by the end of the day, half the people around me never want to be around me again. That goes for thinking I can survive on 3-4 hours a sleep, every night, without any issues. Nope. So, the safest thing would be to wait until Saturday. That way, I can devote the entire day to the project. If at 10am something is broken, or I can’t figure something out, I am not worrying about getting tired or anything else. Plus, at least for those of us in North America, I’m more likely to get a response for an SOS during the day than night. But I say that, and could be 100% wrong. But I am hoping I have no issues, and within a few hours, I’m migrating my workload over to AHV/Nutanix.