Dual-Booting A Server/Workstation/Gaming-Rig Safely

[Arman]

I know people here say Supermicro motherboards are well supported for freenas. But I just thought this AsRock Motherboard had an advantage over the Supermicro X11SSH-F (which i've been considering a lot) because it has 4 pci-e slots over 3. Also, the 16x pci-e slot on the X11SSH-F is actually a x8 which doesn't give me full bandwidth, whereas the AsRock has a true 16x slot (if at a future date I decided that I want to use it for something that benefits from it).

Since Skylake only supports XHCI now, I will have to install the OS on a harddrive. The case i'm building my NAS inside had space for 8 HDDs and 2 SSDs. I don't think i'm willing to waste one motherboard sata port as a boot drive instead of using it for a main drive. I'd rather prefer to get a pcie to sata adapter to use for the OS SSD and keep the other motherboard sata ports for the main drives. Because the AsRock has 4 PCI-e ports (including a 1x which is perfect for a pci-e to sata adapter) I have the other pci-e ports to use for more important things if I ever need to at a later date.

I'd like to know what you guys think of this... Sorry for the noobiness

 

[DrKK]

Why do you care about PCI slots at all, and especially, "full bandwidth"?

Edit: OK, I see you addressed it. I think that's an exceptionally minor issue. I would not go with a Skylake without a good reason, and stick with tried and true platforms.

 

[JDCynical]

But I just thought this AsRock Motherboard had an advantage over the Supermicro X11SSH-F (which i've been considering a lot) because it has 4 pci-e slots over 3. Also, the 16x pci-e slot on the X11SSH-F is actually a x8 which doesn't give me full bandwidth, whereas the AsRock has a true 16x slot (if at a future date I decided that I want to use it for something that benefits from it).

Honestly, I used to think just like this (still do at times).

All my motherboards have multiple PCIe slots to try and allow for future expansion. I've had these boards for several years, and I have used a grand total of one slot on three of the boards, and none of the cards needed anywhere near the full bandwidth of the slot.

While thinking this way is not a bad thing, it's mostly irrelevant in the case of FreeNAS. You are much better off using a board that is known to be a solid performer for the purpose of FreeNAS vs worrying about potential future bandwidth use.

 

[Arman]

Why do you care about PCI slots at all, and especially, "full bandwidth"?

Edit: OK, I see you addressed it. I think that's an exceptionally minor issue. I would not go with a Skylake without a good reason, and stick with tried and true platforms.

To be completely honest I was also thinking of somehow maybe "dual-booting" windows, separately to free NAS, so if I ever wanted to I could throw a graphics card in there to use either use for gaming or a faster rendering of videos on premier pro(or something useful). I know it might sound really stupid of me to even think of doing this for a server, but maybe with thorough thought it can be done. I was thinking of installing freenas through IPMI on a small ssd, setting up the primary drives in a raidz2 or something (without putting any valuable data on them yet), shutting the system down, this time mounting a windows iso through IPMI and installing it on a separate bigger SSD with only windows and it's files on there. I do understand windows would not be able to read files from the primary drives (and I don't want it to). If I ever wanted to move a file from the actual NAS to the windows SSD on the NAS, i'd copy the files to an external SSD first via my laptop and then, turn off the NAS, boot windows and copy the files onto the windows SSD. Again... Excuse my noobiness. I'm just trying to make more use out of my build in a safe way (if it is).

 

[Arman]

and none of the cards needed anywhere near the full bandwidth of the slot.

Yes I understand PCI-e to sata only uses a 1x slot. Please read my reply to DrKK and tell me your thoughts if you wish.

 

[Arman]

So far I have simulated what the windows on a separate drive idea and it has worked. When I boot Freenas and format the NAS drives and put them in a vdev windows no longer even recognises those drives. So even if I were to get a virus on windows it would not be able to infect and cause corruption. However I can see the drives on disk management but they show as not having a file system and thus not accessible through windows.

Does this mean I can run freenas and windows on the same machine? But almost totally isolated from one another? It would be very cool!

All i need to do to access windows is to go to the bios at the start and change the boot order to the windows SSD and when I wanna switch to server I can change the boot order to the freenas drive! I hope im making sense here...

 

[SweetAndLow]

The two are not completely separated. You even proved this when you said windows can see the drives in the device manager. Just remember you can overwrite your freenas disks from Windows if you're not careful.

This isn't how freenas was meant to be used but it will probably work if you need it to.

 

[Arman]

The two are not completely separated. You even proved this when you said windows can see the drives in the device manager. Just remember you can overwrite your freenas disks from Windows if you're not careful.

This isn't how freenas was meant to be used but it will probably work if you need it to.

YesYes ^_^ I realised. The only way I would "accidentally" ruin the server is to manually go and delete the freenas volumes from disk manager in windows like so:


(This is windows 10 running on Parallels 11 just so I can test my idea) (I manually inserted the windows 10 .hdd file into the freenas virtual machine.)

Do you agree?

Yes I understand that this is not the way freenas is meant to be used but it seems safe enough! Unless I go and wreck the drives manually (which I could do from the freenas anyway...) . That's the only way it could happen from windows, right?

This idea came to my mind when I seen unRaid claiming you could run a NAS and at the same time use the computer to play games. I got jealous and thought why couldn't I do something similar with freenas? I will not choose unRaid because it does not use ZFS as its file system and doesn't seem as reliable as freenas...
Could you get more people to take a look at this thread and verify what i'm planning doing here is not catastrophic? I'll be very grateful!!

 

[Arman]

I'd appreciate it a lot if anyone else gives me feedback on this...

 

[jkh]

Windows virii are essentially undefined in their behaviors, and it's certainly possible for Windows to do raw writes to devices without filesystems it recognizes on them, so if a particularly malicious Windows virus wanted to destroy your FreeNAS system, it could certainly do so. I sure as hell wouldn't do that. What I'd do instead is wait for FreeNAS 10 (or FreeNAS 9 + VirtualBox) and run Windows under virtualization if I wanted to run the occasional Windows app (with snapshots so I could roll it back if it caught a cold).

To the follow-up question this poses: If I were using a box as both a FreeNAS server and a Windows gaming PC, I would seriously question my configuration. It would be sort of like buying a "racing minivan" and taking it to the track as well as the grocery store. :)

 

[depasseg]

I don't know of any other dual boot setup and I don't understand the draw, but as long as you don't accidentally overwrite a drive (or a virus formats one) I think you would be ok. But again, I have no experience, so good luck.

 

[MrToddsFriends]

The only way I would "accidentally" ruin the server is to manually go and delete the freenas volumes from disk manager in windows like so:

Possibly initializing a FreeNAS disk in Windows Disk Management would do harm to it, too (in addition to deleting or manipulating FreeNAS partitions). Could happen if you add a disk in the future that you intend to use for Windows and pick the wrong one in Windows Disk Management.

I can't say how likely it it that some Windows malware interferes with volumes invisible to Windows as I'm not an expert.

Call me paranoid, I wouldn't create such a Windows/FreeNAS dual boot environment.

 

[Arman]

Windows virii are essentially undefined in their behaviors, and it's certainly possible for Windows to do raw writes to devices without filesystems it recognizes on them, so if a particularly malicious Windows virus wanted to destroy your FreeNAS system, it could certainly do so. I sure as hell wouldn't do that. What I'd do instead is wait for FreeNAS 10 (or FreeNAS 9 + VirtualBox) and run Windows under virtualization if I wanted to run the occasional Windows app (with snapshots so I could roll it back if it caught a cold).

To the follow-up question this poses: If I were using a box as both a FreeNAS server and a Windows gaming PC, I would seriously question my configuration. It would be sort of like buying a "racing minivan" and taking it to the track as well as the grocery store. :)

Ahahaha ^__^ "buying a "racing minivan" and taking it to the track as well as the grocery store.." I'm still laughing at that :P Im not sure if what im saying is logical or not. But would windows still be able to write to those drives even if they are encrypted?
And with a anti-virus installed would a virus be likely to perform such administrative tasks on a drive that has a file system which isin't even recognised by windows? Not sure if what im saying makes a lot of sense but that's what came to mind anyway... I think there's as much probability in that happening as me accidentally deleting the volumes manually... xD I'd love to know your opinion on this one

Yes virtualisation is also a good idea. But I have no idea how I would run virtualbox on freenas... What does freenas 10 bring to the table in terms of this topic? Any idea when it will be released? Btw, I don't think it would hurt to visit the grocery store with a cool racing minivan every once in a while ;)

 

[Arman]

Possibly initializing a FreeNAS disk in Windows Disk Management would do harm to it, too (in addition to deleting or manipulating FreeNAS partitions). Could happen if you add a disk in the future that you intend to use for Windows and pick the wrong one in Windows Disk Management.

I can't say how likely it it that some Windows malware interferes with volumes invisible to Windows as I'm not an expert.

Call me paranoid, I wouldn't create such a Windows/FreeNAS dual boot environment.

Yes that could happen, but for a person setting up a server it would be wise to follow necessary protocols when doing those things anyway... Such as checking the property of the disk and make sure it is not the wrong one.

 

[Mirfster]

Congrats, you got one of the big wigs to chime in @jkh on your thread... :)

Regarding to what jkh said, I would have to second that opinion.

I personally am a "purist" and prefer to have my systems isolated to their particular roles. My FreeNas is really just for FreeNas, My ESXi is a separate system entirely, same goes for Hyper-V Server and pfsense. To me that allows for redundancy where if one system goes "belly up", then it does not necessarily take down everything.

While what you are proposing is not impossible, it could bring in additional complications. True that anti-virus may add a level of security, but that does not guarantee 100% safety. Malware could be yet another issue or even viruses that may go undetected due to you having out of date definitions or an older virus scan engine. Accidentally running "DiskPart" with the "Clean" switch on the wrong drive could be a major issue. Not saying you will do this, but having a dual boot system inherently allows for these types of situations.

Yes virtualisation is also a good idea. But I have no idea how I would run virtualbox on freenas... What does freenas 10 bring to the table in terms of this topic?

FreeNas 10 is going to improve upon virtualization, but I would not consider it replacement for a dedicated machine that you may be using for gaming, etc. On that note, I would not consider any virtualization platform (ESXi, Hyper-V) a true replacement for a dedicated gaming rig, unless you wanted to spend loads of money (thinking about graphics cards mainly).

If you truly want to dual boot the system, I would recommend perhaps having drives in caddies that you can disconnect/disengage with the machine off; then power up with just the desired drives to be used/seen by that particular OS. Of course, if you incorrectly did this with say 3 drives not attached/engaged for a RAIDZ2 vdev then that would be "troubling"....

At the end of the day it is entirely your choice, but if your data is valuable to you; I would recommend not doing this.

 

[Arman]

UPDATE!! I actually tried to delete a freenas volume after I backed up the .hdd file and this is what I got!! :DD All I need to do set the drive to offline in disk management! However after I set the device back to online and tried to delete it it got deleted.

 

[Arman]

Congrats, you got one of the big wigs to chime in @jkh on your thread... :)

Regarding to what jkh said, I would have to second that opinion.

I personally am a "purist" and prefer to have my systems isolated to their particular roles. My FreeNas is really just for FreeNas, My ESXi is a separate system entirely, same goes for Hyper-V Server and pfsense. To me that allows for redundancy where if one system goes "belly up", then it does not necessarily take down everything.

While what you are proposing is not impossible, it could bring in additional complications. True that anti-virus may add a level of security, but that does not guarantee 100% safety. Malware could be yet another issue or even viruses that may go undetected due to you having out of date definitions or an older virus scan engine. Accidentally running "DiskPart" with the "Clean" switch on the wrong drive could be a major issue. Not saying you will do this, but having a dual boot system inherently allows for these types of situations.


FreeNas 10 is going to improve upon virtualization, but I would not consider it replacement for a dedicated machine that you may be using for gaming, etc. On that note, I would not consider any virtualization platform (ESXi, Hyper-V) a true replacement for a dedicated gaming rig, unless you wanted to spend loads of money (thinking about graphics cards mainly).

If you truly want to dual boot the system, I would recommend perhaps having drives in caddies that you can disconnect/disengage with the machine off; then power up with just the desired drives to be used/seen by that particular OS. Of course, if you incorrectly did this with say 3 drives not attached/engaged for a RAIDZ2 vdev then that would be "troubling"....

At the end of the day it is entirely your choice, but if your data is valuable to you; I would recommend not doing this.

Yes I actually thought of just disconnecting the sata cables too whenever I want to use the other OS! :D Yes I would need to shut down properly and disconnect the drives that way. Would it be bad if I disconnect the cables while everything is stwitched off even if I was using a raid card set in raidz2? If the raid card couldn't access the drives it would just not perform any tasks, (eg emptying the cache).... right?

 

[gpsguy]

Like @jkh and @MrToddsFriends, I wouldn't recommend running a "dual" boot scenario like you've described. Ditto what they've told you.

In the olden days (late '90's, early '0x) I used to run multiple OS' using caddies as @Mirfster described. I was weary of multiboot systems and allowed me to run multiple OS's without worrying about an accident.

If I were in your shoes, I'd buy 2 machines. One for gaming, etc. and possibly scale back on CPU, etc. on your server. Buy a foundation, that you could upgrade when you could afford it.

 

[Mirfster]

Yes I actually thought of just disconnecting the sata cables too whenever I want to use the other OS! :D Yes I would need to shut down properly and disconnect the drives that way.

Yes, disconnecting the sata cables would yield the same results. Just may be more of a pain since you have to take the case cover off, etc.

Would it be bad if I disconnect the cables while everything is stwitched off even if I was using a raid card set in raidz2? If the raid card couldn't access the drives it would just not perform any tasks, (eg emptying the cache).... right?

You mean HBA or card in IT/JBOD Mode, not Raid card right? ;) Yes, if the drives cannot be accessed, then that helps to mitigate the possibilities.

However, you still have at least two potential issues:

1. If the motherboard, cpu, ram or some component decides to halt the system you now neither have access to FreeNas or Windows
2. If you are constantly connecting/disconnecting cables; there is always the chance you may forget one or not seat it properly. Dependent on how your FreeNas pool/vdev is configured, this can be anywhere from an annoying message about a drive missing to total loss of data...

 

[Arman]

@gpsguy @Mirfster @jkh
So the main worrying issue is the idea of virus/malware getting to the the freenas drives and doing raw writes, to the drives and corrupting them? I even tried to manually delete the freenas volume from disk management and i couldn't do it as shown in the pictures above. All I had to do was set the freenas drives to offline in disk management and it was completely inaccessible by windows (while it was set to offline).
I understand you guys have a lot of experience and your senses say nononono to the idea of dual-booting a server ^__^ But I want to logically think about, analyse and simulate the things that could possibly go wrong and think about ways of I could prevent those things happening or at least make them very unlikely. instead of just completely choosing to go with instincts and traditions... Please throw in any other thoughts you have about ways the freenas volumes could be corrupted by windows.