First timer FreeNAS setup

[Zxarr]

So I'm mostly writing this to see if there is anything I should be doing before setting up FreeNAS... or if this setup is just not all that it's cracked up to be?

I plan to use it for:
Plex + media storage
NFS / CIFS shares
Target for guest VM's running on an ESXi box.

The hardware:
Dell R510 8bay
5 4TB drives in a RAIDZ2 configuration
Boot FreeNAS from USB stick
64GB of memory, but I could increase it to 128GB
Dual 2.26Ghz Xeon 4 core processors
10GB Mellanox NIC (for direct attach to my ESXi host)
1GB on-board for the rest of the network

Questions:
1. I've been told for iSCSI, the more memory the better, but is it still a good idea to give it some additional SSD space (PCIe card?) for caching?

2. Can I just 'hot-add' another 4TB disk and add it to the RAIDZ2 pool to extend my storage?

3. Is booting FreeNAS from USB a good way to go? Shuold I be using a PCIe NVME card? I'd like to leave the hot-swap bays in the front of the chassis for future expansion.

4. Backup. Are there backup add-ons or plugins for FreeNAS that allow you to dump volumes onto external, or network, storage?

 

[Chris Moore]

1. I've been told for iSCSI, the more memory the better, but is it still a good idea to give it some additional SSD space (PCIe card?) for caching?

Depends. If you are doing sync writes, you will want a SLOG device, then it is a yes. Read more about SLOG here:

The ZFS ZIL and SLOG Demystified
http://www.freenas.org/blog/zfs-zil-and-slog-demystified/

Testing the benefits of SLOG using a RAM disk!
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...s-of-slog-using-a-ram-disk.56561/#post-396630

Testing the benefits of SLOG
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/testing-the-benefits-of-slog-using-a-ram-disk.56561

SLOG benchmarking and finding the best SLOG
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-and-finding-the-best-slog.63521/#post-454773

2. Can I just 'hot-add' another 4TB disk and add it to the RAIDZ2 pool to extend my storage?

No. For your use and having only 8 bays in the server, you should plan to fill all 8 bays to start and make mirror sets (4 vdevs) instead of RAIDz2. A pool of mirrors will perform much better than a single vdev in a RAIDz2 pool. More vdevs gives more IOPS and more IOPS is preferable when you are using iSCSI with virtualization.

3. Is booting FreeNAS from USB a good way to go?

No, but in that system you probably don't have many options.

Shuold I be using a PCIe NVME card?

As a boot device? Probably not, but you may need one to use for SLOG.

4. Backup. Are there backup add-ons or plugins for FreeNAS that allow you to dump volumes onto external, or network, storage?

You need to read about ZFS snapshot and replication. It is a feature of the file system.

Did you read the manual?
http://doc.freenas.org/11/freenas.html

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

 

[Zxarr]

First off, thank you for your response. While I've been reading up on FreeNAS, there's nothing quite like getting your hands dirty.

Depends. If you are doing sync writes, you will want a SLOG device, then it is a yes.

I will be using NFS for my ESX host, so I'll need the SLOG. I've come across a few articles on how much a simple SSD can increase the throughput... While I cannot easily add an NVME drive to this setup, I can add a SATA III SSD using a Slim Optical Caddy. The server will be on a UPS with serial communication. I found this article stating it's no-longer necessary to have a mirrored SLOG? https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ror-your-slog-zil-drive-recommendation.23445/

For your use and having only 8 bays in the server, you should plan to fill all 8 bays to start and make mirror sets (4 vdevs) instead of RAIDz2. A pool of mirrors will perform much better than a single vdev in a RAIDz2 pool. More vdevs gives more IOPS and more IOPS is preferable when you are using iSCSI with virtualization.

I can't afford to populate all 8 bays at the moment. Do you have any idea what the performance degradation might be between RAIDZ2 and using vdev mirrors? I'm not looking at a high end server deployment here, it's a home lab with a few VM's for me to tinker with, run Minecraft servers for my kid, etc. If it takes an extra second or two to start a VM, I'm not all that worried.

You need to read about ZFS snapshot and replication. It is a feature of the file system.

I know what snapshots are and how then work, but didn't see a lot on replication when I searched for 'FreeNAS backup', so thank you. One more thing I read up on. I can replicate a snapshot to a remote ZFS volume. I suppose I just need to create a ZFS volume on one of my other systems.

I did find that BackBlaze now has support in FreeNAS, so that will come in handy for off-site backup of irreplaceable files.

Thanks again!

 

[Chris Moore]

I will be using NFS for my ESX host, so I'll need the SLOG.

There are many good resources linked in the 'useful links' button in my signature. Do take some time to look through them .