Hi,
I've got a Freenas FreeNAS-11.2-U3 system running on a Dell T110 ii server. The server has 16GB ECC memory and whilst its not the biggest and fastest, it's been an interesting build getting it going. The intention is to understand more about ZFS, and work out the best way for the FreeNAS server to handle light home use.
We're all Mac at home, and as part of the testing, I can create directories and we can have fun running Blackmagic over them to see how it all works.
At the moment the server has nothing of value on it, it's got three 1TB drives for playing with and if it all fell over tomorrow there is zero loss as it's not a production system.
There are limits on the Dell T110 ii server. It only has 5 internal SATA, it only has five power cables. I hadn't realised quite how difficult Dell makes things for their customers. If I was buying a server, I wouldn't touch Dell at all, however I digress. The server was basically free, spending £1,000 is not an option as the CFO has made it quite clear :)
Using various calculators I reckon I need around 4-5TB of space to backup all our photos, films and other 'stuff' that we have accumulated over the years. As I have a maximum of five power cables and five SATA ports, thats the maximum number of disks I can put in. I think I could put a second controller card and have more SATA slots, but I can't easily add more power cables and daisy chaining them isn't really a good idea in my book.
Looking at the various calculators around on the web, it seems a pretty simple calculation, I have a maximum of five disks, the less risk, the more parity disks.
5 x 2TB disks running RAID-Z1 gives 7TB of disks, but only one parity disk
5 x 2TB disks running RAID-Z2 gives 5TB of disk but I now have two parity disks and less chance of a pool failure.
5 x 3TB disks running RAID-Z1 gives 10TB of disks, but only one parity disk
5 x 3TB disks running RAID-Z2 gives 7.8TB of disk but I now have two parity disks and less chance of a pool failure.
I recognise that given the limitations of the server, I cannot run a hot spare.
My preference would be larger (>=3TB) disks BUT I understand the Dell T110 ii has a limitation of 2TB disks.
Q1. If I put a second disk controller card in, a M1015 flashed, would that get around the 2TB limit, my working assumption is that it would but the only way I can check is to buy a larger disk, or repurpose and older 3TB disk and get a card. I can't see any reason why not, but I'm not as familiar as people here on disk cards. I have checked many of the forums and questions, but I suspect my questions is so stupid that nobody has asked it before. I can handle stupid :)
Q2. If I pulled my 3TB disk out of my mac where it's doing backups and shoved it into the FreeNas server to test the reading capability, how could I tell if the system read it as a 2TB disk or a 3TB disk? Would I need to pull the other disks out and create a single disk system. At the moment it boots off the USB key and doesn't boot off any hard disks. I don't have a Windows license (or software), though I could download Ubuntu and test that, but thats yet more hassle. I've never tried to do this before and I'm not sure I know enough to test.
Any help welcomed (even if it's to say I'm an idiot).
Thanks
Rob
I've got a Freenas FreeNAS-11.2-U3 system running on a Dell T110 ii server. The server has 16GB ECC memory and whilst its not the biggest and fastest, it's been an interesting build getting it going. The intention is to understand more about ZFS, and work out the best way for the FreeNAS server to handle light home use.
We're all Mac at home, and as part of the testing, I can create directories and we can have fun running Blackmagic over them to see how it all works.
At the moment the server has nothing of value on it, it's got three 1TB drives for playing with and if it all fell over tomorrow there is zero loss as it's not a production system.
There are limits on the Dell T110 ii server. It only has 5 internal SATA, it only has five power cables. I hadn't realised quite how difficult Dell makes things for their customers. If I was buying a server, I wouldn't touch Dell at all, however I digress. The server was basically free, spending £1,000 is not an option as the CFO has made it quite clear :)
Using various calculators I reckon I need around 4-5TB of space to backup all our photos, films and other 'stuff' that we have accumulated over the years. As I have a maximum of five power cables and five SATA ports, thats the maximum number of disks I can put in. I think I could put a second controller card and have more SATA slots, but I can't easily add more power cables and daisy chaining them isn't really a good idea in my book.
Looking at the various calculators around on the web, it seems a pretty simple calculation, I have a maximum of five disks, the less risk, the more parity disks.
5 x 2TB disks running RAID-Z1 gives 7TB of disks, but only one parity disk
5 x 2TB disks running RAID-Z2 gives 5TB of disk but I now have two parity disks and less chance of a pool failure.
5 x 3TB disks running RAID-Z1 gives 10TB of disks, but only one parity disk
5 x 3TB disks running RAID-Z2 gives 7.8TB of disk but I now have two parity disks and less chance of a pool failure.
I recognise that given the limitations of the server, I cannot run a hot spare.
My preference would be larger (>=3TB) disks BUT I understand the Dell T110 ii has a limitation of 2TB disks.
Q1. If I put a second disk controller card in, a M1015 flashed, would that get around the 2TB limit, my working assumption is that it would but the only way I can check is to buy a larger disk, or repurpose and older 3TB disk and get a card. I can't see any reason why not, but I'm not as familiar as people here on disk cards. I have checked many of the forums and questions, but I suspect my questions is so stupid that nobody has asked it before. I can handle stupid :)
Q2. If I pulled my 3TB disk out of my mac where it's doing backups and shoved it into the FreeNas server to test the reading capability, how could I tell if the system read it as a 2TB disk or a 3TB disk? Would I need to pull the other disks out and create a single disk system. At the moment it boots off the USB key and doesn't boot off any hard disks. I don't have a Windows license (or software), though I could download Ubuntu and test that, but thats yet more hassle. I've never tried to do this before and I'm not sure I know enough to test.
Any help welcomed (even if it's to say I'm an idiot).
Thanks
Rob
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