Hi All,
First post so go easy! :)
After tinkering with FreeNAS as an iSCSI target for my ESXi lab with whatever hardware i found laying around, i'm making the leap and building a purpose built server. Whilst the intended use is primarily for ESX (iSCSI) i would like another pool for an archive/backup volume of around 30TB. Whilst it's running a home lab, it does have some live servers on there (game servers, email servers, etc) that i really don't want to loose but if i did, my world wouldn't end... There's around 20 VMs that have light use - idle most of the time really... except my Ark Survival servers that get hammered! ;)
Having read through many threads on these forums i'm looking at the following kit. Some hardware i already have laying around so would like to reuse where possible.
Case: X-Case RM424 Pro 24 bay (Existing)
Power Supply: Seasonic x1250 (Existing)
SAS controller: 2x Dell H200 flashed to IT (Existing) Not sure on these as Cyberjock comments that they don't handle S.M.A.R.T.?
SAS Expander: HP (I think) 24port expander (Existing)
Motherboard: X11SSH-4LNF (to buy). Seems people aren't using this board but i want the quad nics (1x management, 2x iSCSI and 1x CIFS). Also read that this board doesn't like add-on sas cards?
CPU: E3-1225-v5
RAM: 64GB (4x16GB) Samsung ECC M391A2K43BB1-CPB - Not checked the compatibility list for these so if you know of a better option...
Drives...
iSCSi volume
6x Samsung EVO 850 500GB in RAIDZ2 (existing) (looking for around 1.5TB useable but concious of fragmentation - is this a major concern on SSD?)
2x Intel DC S3510 120GB (SLOG) - looking at sync=always.
Other iSCSI volume for lab/slow/unimportant stuff.
4x Samsung 830 250GB (existing)
2x Intel 320 60GB (existing) for (SLOG) Is this a waste of time?
CIFS volume
12x WD Red TB (existing) i wanna fill this sucker up but the data is mostly static so assume fragmentation wont be so much of an issue?
2x Samsung 750 250GB (SLOG)
And I think that's it - I know there are more disks than bays but that's what duck tape is for! :D
Questions i have are.
1. Is the above reasonable?
2. Will the h200 boards be ok in this motherboard?
3. The fragmmentation issues - is it really a problem given my use case.
4. Do i need SLOG on the SSD volumes?
Thanks in advance!
Mark
First post so go easy! :)
After tinkering with FreeNAS as an iSCSI target for my ESXi lab with whatever hardware i found laying around, i'm making the leap and building a purpose built server. Whilst the intended use is primarily for ESX (iSCSI) i would like another pool for an archive/backup volume of around 30TB. Whilst it's running a home lab, it does have some live servers on there (game servers, email servers, etc) that i really don't want to loose but if i did, my world wouldn't end... There's around 20 VMs that have light use - idle most of the time really... except my Ark Survival servers that get hammered! ;)
Having read through many threads on these forums i'm looking at the following kit. Some hardware i already have laying around so would like to reuse where possible.
Case: X-Case RM424 Pro 24 bay (Existing)
Power Supply: Seasonic x1250 (Existing)
SAS controller: 2x Dell H200 flashed to IT (Existing) Not sure on these as Cyberjock comments that they don't handle S.M.A.R.T.?
SAS Expander: HP (I think) 24port expander (Existing)
Motherboard: X11SSH-4LNF (to buy). Seems people aren't using this board but i want the quad nics (1x management, 2x iSCSI and 1x CIFS). Also read that this board doesn't like add-on sas cards?
CPU: E3-1225-v5
RAM: 64GB (4x16GB) Samsung ECC M391A2K43BB1-CPB - Not checked the compatibility list for these so if you know of a better option...
Drives...
iSCSi volume
6x Samsung EVO 850 500GB in RAIDZ2 (existing) (looking for around 1.5TB useable but concious of fragmentation - is this a major concern on SSD?)
2x Intel DC S3510 120GB (SLOG) - looking at sync=always.
Other iSCSI volume for lab/slow/unimportant stuff.
4x Samsung 830 250GB (existing)
2x Intel 320 60GB (existing) for (SLOG) Is this a waste of time?
CIFS volume
12x WD Red TB (existing) i wanna fill this sucker up but the data is mostly static so assume fragmentation wont be so much of an issue?
2x Samsung 750 250GB (SLOG)
And I think that's it - I know there are more disks than bays but that's what duck tape is for! :D
Questions i have are.
1. Is the above reasonable?
2. Will the h200 boards be ok in this motherboard?
3. The fragmmentation issues - is it really a problem given my use case.
4. Do i need SLOG on the SSD volumes?
Thanks in advance!
Mark