Hello,
My background is a senior level network engineer for a large energy company so I feel I am reasonably tech savvy but I don't get to "play" with storage and servers at work. I just want to build a decent home lab mostly for fun, but I do have about 1TB of the usual family data of pictures, movies, etc that I'd like to keep safe as well.
We are doing a hardware refresh in one of our test/dev environments at work and I will be acquiring the
following parts from Cisco UCS blades and NetApp filers:
4 x Xeon X5570 4c/8t @ 2.933 Ghz LGA1366
2 x Xeon X5670 6c/12t @ 2.933 Ghz LGA1366
18 x 4GB DDR3-1333 ECC RAM
12 X 8GB DDR3-1333 ECC RAM
8 x 16GB DDR3-1066 ECC RAM
2 x Intel 710 series 100GB SSD
14 x Hitachi DK7SAA200 2TB SATA2 7200 RPM drives
I want to build at least one FreeNAS box and an ESXi host. Maybe build an additional FreeNAS for backups. We're about 2 months away from being done with the refresh so I'm using this time to read, read, read and plan, plan, plan.
I'm looking for the best deal I can find on two (or three) Supermicro X8DTE-F motherboards (or similar) on eBay. Also researching cases, power supplies, and CPU heatsink/fans.
My questions:
1. Are the Hitachi drives acceptable for now? I can't find much information on them but can I assume that since they came from enterprise class storage they are up the the task? Assuming they are and I plan to use the 6 on-board SATA ports for now I think the best design is 3 pairs of mirrored vdevs. I plan to replace the Hitachis with WD Reds as time goes on since the drives are so old, but I will have 8 on-shelf spares for now if I don't build 2 FreeNAS.
2. How should I divide up my available RAM? Is there a point of diminishing returns? If so, should 72GB (6*8GB + 6*4GB) get me there or is more always better? I ask because I assume I shouldn't mix the speeds (1066 and 1333) and that would give me enough chips for 2 FreeNAS boxes of my fastest RAM with way more than enough left for my ESXi host. I could also put the 8x16GB for 128GB in the primary FreeNAS, 12x8GB for 96GB in the secondary, and that would leave me with 48GB for the ESXi box which is plenty I am sure for my needs.
3. Are dual X5570 a decent enough fit for this? I figure the ESXi box would benefit more from the 6 cores in the X5670.
4. Would the Intel 710 series 100GB SSDs be suitable for SLOG? I've read some on SLOG and ZIL and I'm certainly no expert and I'm unsure if I'll even benefit from it but it might be something to play with further down the road.
TIA for any advice.
My background is a senior level network engineer for a large energy company so I feel I am reasonably tech savvy but I don't get to "play" with storage and servers at work. I just want to build a decent home lab mostly for fun, but I do have about 1TB of the usual family data of pictures, movies, etc that I'd like to keep safe as well.
We are doing a hardware refresh in one of our test/dev environments at work and I will be acquiring the
following parts from Cisco UCS blades and NetApp filers:
4 x Xeon X5570 4c/8t @ 2.933 Ghz LGA1366
2 x Xeon X5670 6c/12t @ 2.933 Ghz LGA1366
18 x 4GB DDR3-1333 ECC RAM
12 X 8GB DDR3-1333 ECC RAM
8 x 16GB DDR3-1066 ECC RAM
2 x Intel 710 series 100GB SSD
14 x Hitachi DK7SAA200 2TB SATA2 7200 RPM drives
I want to build at least one FreeNAS box and an ESXi host. Maybe build an additional FreeNAS for backups. We're about 2 months away from being done with the refresh so I'm using this time to read, read, read and plan, plan, plan.
I'm looking for the best deal I can find on two (or three) Supermicro X8DTE-F motherboards (or similar) on eBay. Also researching cases, power supplies, and CPU heatsink/fans.
My questions:
1. Are the Hitachi drives acceptable for now? I can't find much information on them but can I assume that since they came from enterprise class storage they are up the the task? Assuming they are and I plan to use the 6 on-board SATA ports for now I think the best design is 3 pairs of mirrored vdevs. I plan to replace the Hitachis with WD Reds as time goes on since the drives are so old, but I will have 8 on-shelf spares for now if I don't build 2 FreeNAS.
2. How should I divide up my available RAM? Is there a point of diminishing returns? If so, should 72GB (6*8GB + 6*4GB) get me there or is more always better? I ask because I assume I shouldn't mix the speeds (1066 and 1333) and that would give me enough chips for 2 FreeNAS boxes of my fastest RAM with way more than enough left for my ESXi host. I could also put the 8x16GB for 128GB in the primary FreeNAS, 12x8GB for 96GB in the secondary, and that would leave me with 48GB for the ESXi box which is plenty I am sure for my needs.
3. Are dual X5570 a decent enough fit for this? I figure the ESXi box would benefit more from the 6 cores in the X5670.
4. Would the Intel 710 series 100GB SSDs be suitable for SLOG? I've read some on SLOG and ZIL and I'm certainly no expert and I'm unsure if I'll even benefit from it but it might be something to play with further down the road.
TIA for any advice.