Family storage - streaming - virt. machines

[tadeus]

Hello,

I am new at freenas and I am planning to build my new homeserver with freenas. The tasks of my new machine are:
1.) whole family storage of pics and movies with backups (internal and at a external server)
2.) I want to use it as streaming storage for my movie files. Streaming and video transcoding with Plex or similar
3.) i will host 2 virtual machines (Linux and Win10)


a.) Am I right with freenas?

b.) How is it with HDD on which freenas is installed? On my old Linux server I used 1 big 500gb SSD for the Linux system, the software (virtualbox, streamingsoftware etc.) and the guest VMs (windows linux). For the data (pic/movie storage, movies for streaming) i used 2x4tb software raid 1
How is it with freenas, because i read that the whole system ssd is only used for the freenas system self. What about the software and vms? Will i need a additional drive for this? Or can I use for this the system ssd?

c.) Thats my planned components:
Board: Fujitsu D3644-B
CPU: Intel Core i3-9100, 4x 3.60GHz
RAM: 2x Samsung DIMM 8GB, DDR4-2666, CL19-19-19, ECC
Storage Raid 1: 2x Western Digital WD Red 6TB
Internal Backup: 1x WD Green 6TB
System: Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB, M.2 , but if I can this ssd only for the system, it is too big
Is this system ok?

Thank you in advance

Regards

tadeus

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

First - take a look at the recommended specs for FreeNAS HERE. They are a good starting place.

Thoughts:

• 16 GB seems rather light for FreeNAS plus a Windows 10 and Linux host in a VM. Whether ECC is needed seems to have a few threads on the forum.
• The boot (system) drive can't be used for storage. I picked up a couple of Kingston 120GB SSDs for $25 (Canadian) each.
• I'd recommend an HBA flashed to IT mode (not sure about the controller on the Fujitsu board)
• FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD. Similar to Linux but not the same. A good starting point, though

 

[tadeus]

The boot (system) drive can't be used for storage. I picked up a couple of Kingston 120GB SSDs for $25 (Canadian) each.

And thats one of the questions. Contains the "boot drive" the software, or will I need an aditional drive for my VMs, plex, ....? How much space do I need only for the system?

 

[tadeus]

Only for my understandig, if I use my 500GB SSD for the system (i think it will need only a few gb), the remaining space of the 500gb are lost?

 

[Fredda]

Only for my understandig, if I use my 500GB SSD for the system (i think it will need only a few gb), the remaining space of the 500gb are lost?

Exactly, that is the reason, why people are using the smallest SSDs available for boot disc.

 

[tadeus]

Ok thank you, I found a thread about it. Now I understand.

How much space do I need for the system in my case?

Should I use the M.2 PCIe Disk for the system and for the virtual machines a SATAII SSD? Or should I use die M.2 for the virtual machines? What is more performant in my case? Or doesnt matter?

 

[otpi]

Should I use the M.2 PCIe Disk for the system and for the virtual machines a SATAII SSD? Or should I use die M.2 for the virtual machines? What is more performant in my case? Or doesnt matter?

M.2 for VMs, small sata ssd for FreeNAS. I use a 240 GB sata ssd, but only because it was a good deal on the day of purchase. 16 GB is the recommended: https://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/

 

[Fredda]

How much space do I need for the system in my case?

The FreeNAS system uses less than 2GByte disc space.

Should I use the M.2 PCIe Disk for the system and for the virtual machines a SATAII SSD? Or should I use die M.2 for the virtual machines? What is more performant in my case? Or doesnt matter?

For the system disc performance only matters in terms of boot speed. After booting the system it runs completely from RAM.

 

[sretalla]

After booting the system it runs completely from RAM.

No longer true since version 9.10.

 

[Fredda]

No longer true since version 9.10.

Ah, OK, thanks for pointing that out. Learned something new.
Although I don't really see activity on my boot disc.
So I think "boot disc performance does not matter for system performance (apart from boot speed)" is still true.

 

[pschatz100]

Boot disk performance is not a factor, but reliability is important. This is why we now recommend a small SSD instead of using thumb drives - but there is no need for superfast SSD.

With two VM's planned, I would start with a minimum of 32Gb RAM. Since that motherboard has four slots, I would purchase 2x16Gb ram. Depending upon what you do in the VM's, you might decide to add more memory so it is a good idea to leave some room for expansion.

 

[sretalla]

Although I don't really see activity on my boot disc.
So I think "boot disc performance does not matter for system performance (apart from boot speed)" is still true.

Mostly right. The reason for recent changes to de-emphasise USB as a good idea for boot pools is that people have been seeing a higher rate of burnout (particularly for USB3 devices) since the change from run in RAM to run from boot pool. The amount of churn is not crazy and it will not typically impact any kind of system performance, but it will fry your boot stick eventually (or so shows some people's experience). As always, your mileage may vary due to many factors.