I am a IT Consultant and my clients are Fortune 500 companies and one of my verticals is ESXi (Hyper-V and XenServer and some KVM) in very large multinational deployments. I'm what you would consider a "fanboy" of ESXi not to mention it's how I also earn a living.
The VPs and the various Client VMware Sales Reps I have spoken too (plus the ones at the VMWorld Convention)... think us home users are a joke. From now on ESXi will be crippleware and it will only get worse. Don't be surprised in the next version if it isn't a hardcore 60 license that will not function in anyway without a license. Yes, they are aware that XenServer and Hyper-V are free and not "crippled" but they don't care. They hardly care about the small business market much less home users / test labs. ESXi 5.5 "crippled" without a license after 60 Days was a "shot across the bow". It's all downhill from here if you don't purchase a realitiy inexpensive license.
Having said all of that...
ESXi 5.0 / 5.1 or "crippled" 5.5 works like a champ as long as they do updates for things like they did Windows 8.2 (when it comes out). Most users do not need the new functions of 5.5. ESXi 5.0, 5.1, 5.5 fixed passthrough for some and broke passthrough for others. If needed, upgrade / downgrade and have a good / solid system.
Will I be moving my current setup to this in the foreseeable future? Probably not.
Will I be trying it out on a testbed? Absolutely.
You know it's 100% Linux Kernel, 100%unRAID kernel module and 100% unRAID emhttp, right?
Tom's unRAID code hasn't changed in forever. It's only the versions of Slackware Linux Packages that he has changed or made changes to emhttp. Like I said earlier, his version of Samba or PHP or NFS wouldn't be allowed in any Enterprise Environment I work in. Red Hat who has 1,000+ developers and millions of customers runs a later version of Samba. Do you think they are on top of managing Linux, RAID, where they have clients running Samba on thousands of different hardware platforms, with exabytes+ of data and using it in thousand different ways is more knowledgeable of which version of Samba is best or 1 man developer?
His unRAID code has NOTHING to do with NFS, Samba, SSH, Mysql, Python, PHP, telnet, the Linux Kernel, etc. and all the other Linux Packages Slackware 13.1 released in 2010.
In summary...
100% Linux Kernel, 100% unRAID Kernel Module, 100% unRAID emhttp with updated / stable Linux packages underneath that isn't in a read only compressed ramfs (even though Ironics takes up less than 200mb of memory).
You can install say... MySQL ONCE. Instead of using a plugin to download MySQL from the internet, unzip it, install it (all using your ram), read a config file from the flash drive, etc. (and hope like hell it doesn't break other plugins when one plugin guy uses one version of a package and a different plugin guy uses a different one). You can install owncloud instead of waiting YEARS for someone to write a plugin and maintain it (still doesn't exist). I dunno... To me it's easier to type in "yum -install owncloud" once and not have to worry about it again instead of waiting on someone to write a plugin.
Online Back Up is important to me, Crashplan doesn't require all the BS I have to go through to make it work on unRAID via plugin. Plus, I am not stuck with Dropbox or Crashplan either. I have plenty of choices besides those two plugins due to the fact I am running unRAID on a non-stripped down version of Slackware.
Enterprises who spend millions of dollars on IT to run their 10s of millions of dollars of ERP software so they can continue to makes billions of dollars wouldn't dream of running their Storage in a VM (much less on an outdated / unpatched Linux Kernel and Linux Packages.
Why is running unRAID using passthrough via a VM considered stable / safe but it's not when it's the Host? Whoever made that rule doesn't know what unRAID (RAID) is, how it works, clueless about Linux and Software / Hardware Lifecycle Management.
People have been asking for a 64Bit version of unRAID for 3+ years and still we aren't there yet. Sure, Tom is a one man show and due to life / life circumstances, he goes through "spurts" and long "droughts" between development and innovation. However, I got tired of waiting and did it in 10 minutes (THREE Linux Kernel settings and updated a couple of packages). Imagine what other innovations other users will bring to the table. Tom will find himself with many "open source" developers like the plugin writers, Ironic, Simplyfeatures guy, etc. who freely volunteer their time, energy and effort to make unRAID an even better product than it already is. Not to mention, Tom is will continue to reap the financial rewards. A win / win for Tom.
Wait till some of the web development guys write a module for Webmin:
or WebYast:
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