Dell C2100 Server for VM storage

[Slu]

Hello everyone,

My IT department is looking to purchase the Dell PowerEdge C2100 seen here: http://www.deepdiscountservers.com/dell-poweredge-c2100-fs12-ty-lff-12-port.html

The purpose would be to use this server mainly for storage for our VM cluster. We currently have 3 host ESXi servers and would like to use this new C2100 as a SAN for those 3 ESXi host servers.

We wanted to get advice and ask if this is possible with this hardware:
Processor: Intel Xeon X5650 2.66GHz 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 95W Hex-Core BX80614X5650
RAM: 48 GB DDR3 1066 ECC
12 Hard Drives with 2 TB each

We we're also told that we should NOT use a hardware based raid but instead use a software based Raid Z2.
Would we encounter any problems using this box as a SAN for our VM host servers? Any other recommendations for our build?

Thank you all for your time and assistance!

Best,
Steven

 

[anodos]

Hello everyone,

My IT department is looking to purchase the Dell PowerEdge C2100 seen here: http://www.deepdiscountservers.com/dell-poweredge-c2100-fs12-ty-lff-12-port.html

The purpose would be to use this server mainly for storage for our VM cluster. We currently have 3 host ESXi servers and would like to use this new C2100 as a SAN for those 3 ESXi host servers.

We wanted to get advice and ask if this is possible with this hardware:
Processor: Intel Xeon X5650 2.66GHz 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 95W Hex-Core BX80614X5650
RAM: 48 GB DDR3 1066 ECC
12 Hard Drives with 2 TB each

We we're also told that we should NOT use a hardware based raid but instead use a software based Raid Z2.
Would we encounter any problems using this box as a SAN for our VM host servers? Any other recommendations for our build?

Thank you all for your time and assistance!

Best,
Steven

Read the hardware stickies.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

Read the stickies regarding using freenas for VM storage.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...xi-nfs-so-slow-and-why-is-iscsi-faster.12506/

Read the newbie guide.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Since this is for a business, you should seriously consider ordering hardware from ixsystems and getting a support contract. The expense related to getting proper hardware / support is nothing compared to the expenses you can face in terms of man-hours and support if something goes sideways.

I read that the H200 supports drive passthrough, but this is something you need to verify. If I were in your place, I'd probably stick to well-tested / verified hardware. If you ignore hardware recommendations you may find yourself up a creek without a paddle, which isn't good when it involves your job.

 

[cyberjock]

What Anodos said, 100%.

C2100 may or may not have many peculiarities. With pre-built name brand stuff, there is never any guarantees that stuff will work and will work properly. Better to either build it yourself after doing proper research and reading of what to buy (and what not to buy) or buy something from iXsystems. Even more so when dealing with a company's interests.

Just as an example... http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/poweredge-c2100-spec-sheet-en.pdf

Notice it doesn't list FreeBSD as supported. So it's anyone's guess as to if it will even boot. Assuming it will boot, who knows what other problems may or may not exist. So you should definitely do your due diligence before hitting the "buy it now" button. ;)

 

[Slu]

Thank you for this information.

One last question. Should I have any problem installing freeNAS from a usb CDROM drive?

 

[cyberjock]

That depends on a lot of factors. The best way to find out is to try it.

I cannot install from USB CD-ROM on one of my machines, but the others I have work fine. So YMMV. ;)

 

[Slu]

Yea I tried to from a USB CD-ROM and i started getting

(cd0:umass-sim 0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error

Not sure what that means.

Gonna try to use a USB instead. Or install a CD-ROM drive to the server. Thank you

 

[cyberjock]

For me, those errors meant you can't use the USB CD-ROM device (I got those exact errors).

 

[Slu]

Cyberjock,

Thank you so much for your help. I ended up having to use another system's CD-ROM drive and connect it to the server but everything is working now.
I have freeNAS running on my test server.

Now that we have confirmed that it works on the test server, we are going to go ahead with the C2100. We ensured that it meets all the hardware requirements for for freeNAS and I have read through the links you have provided me.
Very informative.

I was hoping you could provide me with guidance concerning my specific task, in the form of video tutorials or documentation. There seems to be information on running freeNAS INSIDE of VMware but I'm trying to use this C2100 has a SAN running freeNAS to provide storage to my VM's running on three different ESXi servers.

I found this article: http://www.mandsconsulting.com/deploying-freenas-as-iscsi-san-for-vmware-vsphere

It looks promising but I wanted to get your advice on this endeavor.

Thank you so much for all your help and I look forward to your reply!

Best,

Steven

 

[Slu]

The current HD's we have are 10 2 TB drives with 2 240 GB SSD's.
We weren't sure if we should replace those SSD with 2 more 2 TB drives to have two VDevs, each with 6 drives in a RAID-Z2 set up.
Or if we should utilize those SSD's for ZIL?

 

[anodos]

Cyberjock,

Thank you so much for your help. I ended up having to use another system's CD-ROM drive and connect it to the server but everything is working now.
I have freeNAS running on my test server.

Now that we have confirmed that it works on the test server, we are going to go ahead with the C2100. We ensured that it meets all the hardware requirements for for freeNAS and I have read through the links you have provided me.
Very informative.

I was hoping you could provide me with guidance concerning my specific task, in the form of video tutorials or documentation. There seems to be information on running freeNAS INSIDE of VMware but I'm trying to use this C2100 has a SAN running freeNAS to provide storage to my VM's running on three different ESXi servers.

I found this article: http://www.mandsconsulting.com/deploying-freenas-as-iscsi-san-for-vmware-vsphere

It looks promising but I wanted to get your advice on this endeavor.

Thank you so much for all your help and I look forward to your reply!

Best,

Steven

I'm not a ZFS expert, but I'm somewhat skeptical that two RAIDZ2 vdevs are going to give the level of performance that you are expecting. You may be better off using mirrors.

Please familiarize yourself with stickies on the forums. An example of a relevant sticky is: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...xi-nfs-so-slow-and-why-is-iscsi-faster.12506/

 

[cyberjock]

I'll echo what anodos said. You have no chance of getting even "good" VM performance with a RAIDZ2. That's totally out of the question. You are going to be forced to do mirrors, so get on board with mirrors now.

I don't know what your "test" system is, but if you read our burn-in threads, you are not going to convince me that the C2100 is going to work in less than 24 hours, assuming your test system was another C2100. No way no how. Even 2-3 weeks would be a bit on the "eh.. maybe I'd call it safe". Just because it booted and you may be able to create a zpool does not define it as "working" in my book. There are plenty of ways that I could build a system that will appear to work properly, and days/weeks later it blow up and you lose all the data.

Not trying to be hard on you, just trying to make you aware of this since this is for a company and the stakes are pretty high if things go bad. Not to mention that most of the time, if things go badly you'll find out after the data is also irretrievably lost. ;)

 

[Slu]

Test system is a C6100.

I understand your reason for being frank, I appreciate it. The C2100 has all the recommendations you advise for in your sticky.
Motherboard is an Intel system that uses ECC memory. We have a maximum of 128 GB of RAM andwe are looking at 12 TB of HD space. And we are not using a raid controller per your recommendation.
I dont understand what other things I should account for hardware wise?

 

[Slu]

RAM is DDR3. Only thing we are not doing is getting the recommended 4 TB HD's but we may end up buying those.
I'm more concerned on how to set up this freeNAS server as a SAN for my ESXi servers.

 

[cyberjock]

Test system is a C6100.

I understand your reason for being frank, I appreciate it. The C2100 has all the recommendations you advise for in your sticky.
Motherboard is an Intel system that uses ECC memory. We have a maximum of 128 GB of RAM andwe are looking at 12 TB of HD space. And we are not using a raid controller per your recommendation.
I dont understand what other things I should account for hardware wise?

The problem is that the hardware, since it is Dell (you could insert any other brand here) they may have intricacies with the hardware that makes it a bad choice. There's plenty of examples of hardware that appears to work but doesn't as soon as you actually use it in a real-world setting. Stacked against you is the fact that Dell has NOT listed FreeBSD as "supported" (see the webpage I linked above). So who knows how good or bad it will work with FreeNAS long term, under a real workload.

So while it appears to have all the recommendations, it most certainly isn't what I would call 'recommended hardware'. It's not on the sticky. There's also no guarantee that rev A of the hardware worked while rev B doesn't.

Just warning you. It's your money spent ultimately. *I* wouldn't go down that path though, but that's just me.

 

[Slu]

The problem is that the hardware, since it is Dell (you could insert any other brand here) they may have intricacies with the hardware that makes it a bad choice. There's plenty of examples of hardware that appears to work but doesn't as soon as you actually use it in a real-world setting. Stacked against you is the fact that Dell has NOT listed FreeBSD as "supported" (see the webpage I linked above). So who knows how good or bad it will work with FreeNAS long term, under a real workload.

So while it appears to have all the recommendations, it most certainly isn't what I would call 'recommended hardware'. It's not on the sticky. There's also no guarantee that rev A of the hardware worked while rev B doesn't.

Just warning you. It's your money spent ultimately. *I* wouldn't go down that path though, but that's just me.

Once again, I appreciate your warnings, truthfully. I have brought all concerns that this community has to my manager so this decision is out of my hands. We may end up building our server using a windows OS instead.
I have one final question, if you would be so kind sir, if most motherboards only support, usually, around 8 controllers for hard drives, how do you support additional(12+ HDs) without a controller? Do you then go with the IBM M105?

Thank you for your time.

 

[depasseg]

how do you support additional(12+ HDs) without a controller?

The larger chassis have backplanes with expanders. So using 1 cable from the motherboard controller (like an LSI 2008) or M1015 to the backplane provides access to all drives. As a former Dell employee, I love to see you trying to use the C2100. However, as a FreeNAS user, I'd suggest picking up a supermicro (like the SC846 for $350 on ebay) and having oodles of expansion capacity. You could use 20 1 TB drives as striped mirrors (to give you performance) and have room for 4 x 6TB RAID Z1 for replication of the vm-pool.

[edited: corrected SC846 part number.]

 

[anodos]

The larger chassis have backplanes with expanders. So using 1 cable from the motherboard controller (like an LSI 2008) or M1015 to the backplane provides access to all drives. As a former Dell employee, I love to see you trying to use the C2100. However, as a FreeNAS user, I'd suggest picking up a supermicro (like the SC486 for $350 on ebay) and having oodles of expansion capacity. You could use 20 1 TB drives as striped mirrors (to give you performance) and have room for 4 x 6TB RAID Z1 for replication of the vm-pool.

That'd be an SC846 ;)

 

[Slu]

Thank you everyone. I appreciate all your help, advise, and warnings!

You guys have a great community here.

 

[depasseg]

That'd be an SC846 ;)

Typo fixed, thanks!

 

[Z300M]

The larger chassis have backplanes with expanders. So using 1 cable from the motherboard controller (like an LSI 2008) or M1015 to the backplane provides access to all drives. As a former Dell employee, I love to see you trying to use the C2100. However, as a FreeNAS user, I'd suggest picking up a supermicro (like the SC846 for $350 on ebay) and having oodles of expansion capacity. You could use 20 1 TB drives as striped mirrors (to give you performance) and have room for 4 x 6TB RAID Z1 for replication of the vm-pool.

[edited: corrected SC846 part number.]

How much power does a chassis like that use? Two(!) 1200 Watt PSUs.

And you would use this simply as an enclosure for the additional drives, right? How does one make the connection from the "main" machine to this enclosure? Or do you relocate the existing motherboard to this chassis?