OpenSolaris ZFS barebones for NAS
Definitely go with OpenSolaris for your NAS. Lots of options there, and ZFS can't be beat.
For virtualization, I can think of two options off the top of my head:
- Use VirtualBox on OpenSolaris. It's come a long way, and I recall seeing something about a web based management utility for managing headless guests. Ah, found it: VBoxWeb
- If you must use VMWare, get a second box dedicated as a VM hypervisor, use the OpenSolaris box as a SAN, and export the VM storage via iSCSI.
I would suggest running the storage and hypervisor as separate physical boxes either way you go, otherwise performance will suffer. ZFS likes lots of RAM.
OpenSolaris doesn't have a true "minimal" install as of yet, but they're working on it: OpenSolaris 2009.06 JeOS Prototype. The approach most admins have taken thus far has been to just remove what they don't want after the install is finished.
Just a few observations- The combination of ZFS + Crossbow + xVM is a staggeringly cool platform for virtualization on a single box. It's annoying that the distro can't be pared down somewhat, but that will eventually be improved.
Should you need to upsize beyond that, it's pretty straightforward to use one server for storage(ZFS-backed iSCSI SAN) and another for virtualization(xVM + Crossbow).
You could use the OpenSolaris Automated Installer combined with the OpenSolaris JeOS AI manifest to install just the base system and packages you require.