So you want some hardware suggestions.

[panz]

panz, your complaint about expander backplanes is kind of odd. You're basically in trouble with big complex hardware if ANY of it fails. Could be an SAS expander chip, yes, but even avoiding that, if you have a 24 drive chassis, what do you do if you snap off an SAS/SATA connector on the backplane? If you have an HBA with 8 ports, what do you do if that fails on your 12 drive pool? etc.

It is probably wise to give the issue some thought but it probably doesn't warrant totally avoiding a given bit of hardware.

I have "redundant" (= double) hardware for my setup (two M1015, two RES2SV240, etc.). It's not the same about the backplanes. I think I don't need a spare part for them.

I tried to disassemble my backplanes and it is not very difficult to do; so – in the event of a failure (who sold me the hardware told me he hasn't changed one yet...) – I'm confident I'll deal with it.

Not the same story about the expander backplane (same case): it was almost impossible to service without dismantling the entire chassis, it had a lot of components, it reduced the airflow, it was not clear which hard drive each 4-pin connector was going to feed, etc.

 

[Michael M.]

Hello,

VDI (with Vmware)is coming to our campus. At least for the first ~150 office users, each given a Windows 7 VM.
So, I need a bunch of appliances with NFS for the VM. Well, I´ll write down what I´d like to buy and do. Feel free to comment about each listing.
(Of course we already had some vendorsp praising their products: HP/EMC/Tintry. But hey, not for that price...)

- supermicro chassis with 24x 2.5"
- mainboard: Supermicro X9DRW-CTF31 including Mezzanine Controller AOM-S3108-H8 SAS3 (That one coms with 1GB cache I think. Don´t see whether it supports JBOD), Intel PCH C602J, 2x 10GbE NICs
- CPU: Two Intel Xeon E5 v2 CPUs, but which one? How many cores are necessary? 4,6,8,12 core? (2x Intel Xeon E5-2403 v2 versus Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2, 12x 2.70GHz?)
- RAM: 512GB ECC/Registered (Oracle puts 512GB RAM in its ZFS boxes. Well they must know... I once was on a blog. The author wrote that there are problems if RAM is more than 128GB?)
- OS: FreeNAS/NAS4Free or just a plain FreeBSD?

- HDD (OS+ZIL): 2x Western Digital VelociRaptor 1TB, SATA3 6Gb/s, 10000rpm (Should I really take separate disks for SLOG? Take another 2 VelociRaptor and use RAID1 on the LSJ S3108 controller?)
- HDD (L2ARC): 4x Intel SSD DC S3700 Series 800GB, 2.5", SATA 6Gb/s (rather expensive, but high TBW, any alternative SSDs?)
- HDD (VM): 18x Western Digital VelociRaptor 1TB, SATA3 6Gb/s, 10000rpm (ZFS with RAIDZ3 over all disks?)


Let´s take two of those boxes with HAST/CARP
Let´s take several pairs of those boxes to distribute the VMs
I´m probably naive. Yes I do not take SAS drives. I do not the the reason to buy SAS drives. But for redundancy I have that HAST/CARP setup. Will HAST be the right choice? Feel free to link to topics with SATA3/SAS discussions.

Regards
Michael

 

[jgreco]

Honestly, don't. It looks to me like you've done a lot of reading but have no experience, and you can get into Expensive Mistake territory very quickly. The following text probably contains a very high clue ratio. I don't have time for details this morning, sorry.

The X9DRW-CTF31 is probably not appropriate.

You probably do not require two E5's. A single E5 with high core speed is typically what I prefer.

You can start out with less RAM and see how performance is. Going right to 512GB is way expensive. 128 or 192 are nice numbers. As noted there are some issues with some ZFS versions that should mean additional research.

The best general SLOG for a heavy NFS write environment like VMware is going to be something like a ZeusRAM.

The amount of L2ARC you've suggested exceeds comfortable ARC:L2ARC ratios. It might not be impossibly high, but you would be better to start off with less L2ARC. Especially if you go with only 192/128GB RAM, which would cap your L2ARC more around 512GB.

Do not use RAIDZ3 for high performance VM storage. Your only option is mirroring (two- or three-way are both possible).

Be sure to take into account that you do not want to fill your pool greater than maybe 50% in order to reduce fragmentation. Buy more storage.

If you're looking at a HAST setup, FreeNAS does not support that.

We use SAS with big storage for a number of reasons, including: 1) it works correctly more of the time, including things like TLER, 2) a proper design allows multipathing, 3) it also allows for multiple heads (FreeNAS doesn't but Nexenta does).

So you should probably reassess. I wouldn't try to do HAST. That's kind of experimental. Normally that sort of thing is done with an external SAS array and dual heads. Nexenta has a HA package which I haven't yet actually seen but did get to ask them some squirmy questions about, and should get to see in practice real soon. If you don't actually need dual heads, then it would be worth talking to the guys at iXsystems who will give you a good deal on a TrueNAS appliance, which is basically FreeNAS on steroids on a platform that's guaranteed not to be an Expensive Mistake. Both vendors come highly recommended.

 

[malfactor]

Hello, I am planning on purchasing parts for my first NAS and was wondering a few things regarding the suggested parts.

I was wondering if the Supermicro X9SCM-F motherboard would play nicely with the rest of the build suggested in the OP. I've followed it almost as a cookie cutter because I honestly think it looks just fine to my limited knowledge. I could not find any info about ECC support so should I steer clear? Alternatively, what about the MBD-X9SCM-F-O?
Also, would the Intel Xeon E3-1230V2 still be recommended?

 

[jgreco]

The X9SCM is a fine board and you'll enjoy it. Haswell is slightly newer but the E3-1230v2 is still a great CPU and no one I know of has regretted it.

 

[cyberjock]

I've got a 1230v2 on X9SCM! Great combo!

 

[jgreco]

That's high praise ;-)

 

[malfactor]

Thank you both for the recommendation!

 

[Grymok]

Hello FreeNas people.

Not sure if i shall post here, or make a new thread.

I have been looking around for a small home NAS, for like 6-12 months now and i keep switching between buying one and building one.
There's only gonna be 1 maybe 2 persons on the NAS at the same time, mostly it's just gonna torrent and stream some movies/music(Maybe some transcoding, but haven't tried it before).
A big importance of the build is the power consumption and NOISE. I'm gonna sleep with the same room as the NAS, so it's gonna be dead silent
It's gonna hold my music and ofc my whole blu-ray collection plus some other minor things.
I'm thinking 6-8 4tb drives with some redundance.


The consumer NAS:
Asustor AS-606T, 6 bay, 1 gb ram (can be upgraded to 3) with an 2.9ghz intel atom duo core(it can't transcode movie in 720p and up, if you read reveiws).
Then run either raid 5 with 6 disks and have 1 failover, or run Raid 6 with 2 failovers.
price: 614,- euro


FreeNAS server:
I know you recommend the ECC ram etc. but in such a little server which only gonna stream a little and keep some data(Yes i have read all posts on ECC ram etc).
I'm just left with the choices on going with a super server setup, which I probably not gonna use it's potential power(maybe with transcoding).

MB: Supermicro X10SL7 or the A1SAM-2550F
CPU: Intel I3 4330T(ofc not for the atom board)
Chassis: Fractal Design R4 (If i could get a mini-itx i would love the SilverStone DS380 with 8 hotswap bays, but can't seem to find a mini-itx mb with 8 sata slots)
PSU: Seasonic G 360
RAM: 16 gb kingston value ECC ram
Price for I3 setup: 660,- euro
Price for Atom: 560,- euro

I'm really lost which to choose, and if it would be better just to buy a normal mini-ITX with 8 sata ports, and use the SilverStone DS380 instead of FD R4.

I hope some of you guys, can help me.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Hi Grymok,

You can have your cake and eat it too; meet the ASRock C2550D4I:

http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C2550D4I#

12 SATA ports, mini-ITX form factor, low power consumption, fanless, and most importantly - ECC support and in use by several other members on this board.

Glad to hear that you're still going ECC even if you're skeptical that you need it. Trust me, you do.

 

[Grymok]

Hi Grymok,

You can have your cake and eat it too; meet the ASRock C2550D4I:

http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C2550D4I#

12 SATA ports, mini-ITX form factor, low power consumption, fanless, and most importantly - ECC support and in use by several other members on this board.

Glad to hear that you're still going ECC even if you're skeptical that you need it. Trust me, you do.

I have been looking at that one, but can't find ANY places to buy it in the Europe. So gonna be pretty hard.

As i wrote, i'm not sure if i shall go with another MB which doesn't support ECC, and get a mini-ITX board. And i'm not even sure if i should go with FreeNAS as of now.
So i'm still pretty lost.

 

[warri]

Amazon UK (320€) and 4Launch in the Netherlands (255€) seem to sell it ;)

 

[Grymok]

Hmm your right Warri :)

I'm still in the dilemma of which solution to choose.
Why pick the FreeNAS over the Asustor?.
FreeNAS will have more power, and can be expanded in size, a lot of configuration to get it working and no support.
Asustor will have less power and have a static size, easier to configure, and support lays at Asustor

I'm not sure where to ask these questions though

 

[cyberjock]

LOL.. support lays at Asustor! That is so hilarious I don't know if I'll be able to stop laughing...

Do you know how many people go to FreeNAS because Asustor is a joke?

Those ready-made NASes are barely reliable enough for me to recommend for backup data. Give this forum a read. Dozens of people have lost data with those boxes and want to go to something that doesn't work on proprietary software that you can't control and sometimes flakes out and eats your data. And when you call these companies they just tell you "we're sorry about that".

 

[Grymok]

I'm sorry jock, but i haven't seem to find any of those threads you refer to.
And i must admit i haven't heard of these things from the consumer NAS' that the data or volume is just gone. Maybe the volume in some rare cases, else not.

Still haven't got a clear answer, if FreeNAS is recommended for what i need, or i can step down the latter. It ain't the power hungry, or biiig server i'm looking for here.
It just seems stupid to spend like 600 euro, if i'm only gonna use 1/8 of the performance of the box?.

 

[Oded]

Hi all,

I'm getting ready for my next build. I think I am pretty set on the following:


- ASRock C2750D4I Motherboard
- Silverstone DS380 Case
- Kingston KVR16N11K2/16 2x8gb kit (will add another 16gb in the future as needed)
- 4 x WD RED 4Tb hard drives in RAIDZ1 (I think... still considering if I need RAIDZ2)

In the future, when I'll need to, I will add another pool of RAIDZ1 with another set of 4 x WD Red 4Tb drives and another set of 2x8Gb RAM.

A few questions:

1. Which power supply should I get? I ofcourse want to the most efficient low-power supply, yet one that could run everything in the future, in the 8-drives configuration.
2. Any point in RAIDZ2? I have a current system that I'll use as an off-site backup for the critical files using RSYNC. The current system is more modest: 4x2Tb drives (1 Red, 3 Green), Intel Atom 525 with 4Gb Non-ECC ram (but the processor can only see 3gb). I use NAS4FREE on the current machine because FREENAS was insanely slow while NAS4FREE was able to serve the files without issue despite the limitations.
3. Any changes you'll make to the setup?
4. How would you recommend I'll setup the OS itself? Does freenas run fine from a USB stick like NAS4FREE, or is that not the recommended approach?
5. The DS380 has 4 additional internal bays in 2.5" form. Can I use one of those as a cache disk for ZFS using an SSD? If so, any recommendations on an SSD to use and what size?
6. Last, I guess I know the answer but I'll ask again: Is deduplication still a bad idea for home systems like the one I described? I did manage to crash my zpool when I enabled deduplication a few years ago on the old machine, but as you can see I had really low RAM and hardware :).

Thanks!

 

[warri]

1. Modern drives are not consuming much power, the 4TB Reds probably use a maximum of 5 watts each when in use (4.5 as per specification) and around 3.5 watts when idle. On system start, you want to double quintuple that amount to have enough reserves for drive-spinup etc. Other components of your build are also really low-powered, the whole platform using around 35 watts under load (full network and CPU load: See this test real-world test).
   Assuming 8 drives this amounts to a total of 115 235 watts while starting the system. Go figure that you don't need a 500W power supply ;)
   
   
2. This decision fully depends on your willingness to take risk. But if you are willing to spend quite an amount of money for new parts, in the end a single extra hard drive won't make such a difference.
   
3. You need to use ECC RAM.
   
4. Yes, USB.
   
5. Cache most likely won't give you any advantages, more likely even performance penalties. Read other thread in this forum about cache drives.
   
6. Yes, very bad idea. Per FreeNAS manual the recommended amount of RAM is 5 GB per 1 TB of deduplicated storage.

EDIT: See 3, the RAM you listed is not ECC.

 

[Oded]

Thanks for your thoughts.

Based on your recommendations, I think I'll go with this power supply (really can't find anything with LESS power :)):

Silverstone Tek 300W
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FA4KP8S/?tag=ozlp-20 form factor

EDIT: Now that I think of it, if this power supply is rated BRONZE while the 450W power supply is rated GOLD... which would be more efficient in terms of power draw?

Silverstone Tek 450W

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008VQ2Y4K/?tag=ozlp-20

 

[Oded]

By the way - according to this video review, you are able to TRANSCODE and STREAM 1080p to up to FOUR devices on your LAN with Plex Media Server under freenas. Now, THAT is impressive.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2ERph8v13s

 

[jgreco]

@warri, Please do not advise people to under-estimate their spin watts. Most drives take nearly 2 amps on the 12 volt to spin up, putting the current required for spin at around 20-25 watts per drive, NOT including the power for the board electronics (a few watts). Even the lowest power 3.5" drives take at least 1.2A, which is still 14 watts, just for spin, plus the idle watts for the electronics.

Underestimating your spin current on a PC is harmless since you're only talking one or two drives and you should have sufficient headroom. However, on a NAS, this is an important variable, because eight drives means that you need to account for an extra 150-200W of capacity just for spin. If you use an under-rated supply, either you will stress the components in the supply (leading to premature supply failure) or you will experience voltage sag (leading to premature drive failure). Neither of these are good things.