Editing Storage (section)

=== Local Storage ===
This is the simplest, least expensive option, and can start from something as simple as running a lab from your local laptop drive on a 5400 RPM SATA drive, all the way to doing nested VSAN in a single host, with a load of flash drives for optimum performance.

This kind of configuration is often associated with a vInception-style setup, such as when you install a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor#Classification Type 2 Hypervisor] onto a Windows, Linux or Mac operating system, then run VMs inside that, some of which may even be hypervisors themselves!

Taking this a step further you could even install a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor#Classification Type 1 Hypervisor] such as ESXi / Hyper-V onto the physical server and run as many VMs as you can fit. Alternatively if you want to test out running multiple datastores over iSCSI or NFS, then you could even install a VM on top of your physical host, and have that present out datastores / LUNs to your other VMs using some [[Storage#Whitebox Storage|whitebox storage software]]. It will definitely have a performance hit, but if logical testing is all you want to do, then it is perfectly acceptable and will run well with the addition of some flash.

[[File:SharkoonQuickPort4Bay.jpg|250px|bortder|right]]The key benefits to using local storage are:
* Simplicity - You don't need to use any storage protocols, you don't need any additional network configuration, etc. You simply start carving VMDKs from your local drives. Couldn't be easier!
* You are free to buy whatever case and compute you like, so can choose how big you want to scale your storage node, from a single drive, up to potentially a dozen or more in a single chassis!
* Cost; this is the lowest cost solution, as you have to buy the drives anyway, so you have virtually zero further overhead.

The main drawbacks are:
* Although cost is cheap, bear in mind that you are limited to the number of bays in the single host. It is possible at add additional disk bays depending on your physical chassis, for example Icy Dock have a wide range of add-on SATA disk cages which typically fit into one or more 3.5" or 5.25" slots and allow you to add more [http://www.icydock.com/category.php?id=117 2.5"] or [http://www.icydock.com/category.php?id=113 3.5"] drives. Other vendors are of course available, including for example the [https://www.sharkoon.com/product/1686/12640#desc Sharkoon Quickport] line! :)
* To provide any decent resilience or scale significantly beyond your motherboard's maximum number of SATA slots, or even protect yourself from motherboard failures with something you can easily replace, you may require an additional SATA array card. These can be reasonably expensive, but decent enterprise ones such as [http://www.dell.com/learn/uk/en/ukbsdt1/campaigns/dell-raid-controllers Dell PERC] (which are usually rebranded [https://www.adaptec.com/en-us/support/raid/ Adaptec] cards anyway) can even be purchased on eBay and retrofitted in a PCI slot. They typically come in 4/8/16 port configurations, but remember that the secret is to have as much cache in them as possible if you want to have decent performance.
* Lack of flexibility and scalability; both are limited to whatever you can achieve in your single host. That said, it is still possible to add further physical hosts to your cluster as long as you then accept the single point of failure of your primary host, and you have some method for sharing that storage (e.g. by installing some storage software either in the OS or in a VM on that host. Which leads us neatly onto [[Storage#Whitebox Storage|whitebox storage]].
* Lastly, if you like to keep your lab running 24/7 you will need to take your lab down to patch and reboot the underlying OS, which is obviously a bit of a pain. No such thing as non-disruptive upgrades on local storage!