First Ever Server Build & FreeNas Newbie

[Wouter]

Yep, no real issues with using two USB Sticks. Only difficulty I could foresee is if one of them should fail, it may be hard to determine which one has failed. This is opposed to when you use an actual drive since you can track/trace it easier based on Serial Number. Of course, I have never used USB drives myself (I all *uppity* like that... ;) ); but others may have more insight.

I totally understand about not wanting to consume SATA ports as well as costs, as long as you keep backups of your Configuration then actual re-installing and uploading a save Configuration is pretty painless.


Not that I am aware of. I am not sure why one would need to worry about encrypting the OS drives personally. As far as encryption itself (for the pools/datasets); I prefer to steer clear of that in FreeNAS as well. May want to search the forums first regarding Encryption if you are entertaining that idea.

Thanx Mirfster. My underquotes:
* I think getting to know which of the two flash drives is failing (if not both...) is just trial and error: unplug one, if the system is booting then the other one is failing.. Right?
* backups of the configuration can be made via the GUI I read. Is the configuration used on the system stored on the boot drive/disk or in the storage pool too?
* about the encryption: when the OS is handling crypto for the storage pool, it has to store crypto keys. I think one would like to store those crypto keys on safe media (like crypted flash drives). I'll read some more.

 

[Mirfster]

* I think getting to know which of the two flash drives is failing (if not both...) is just trial and error: unplug one, if the system is booting then the other one is failing.. Right?

Agreed. Not as dangerous as if one was talking about a mirrored vdev that was part of a pool. :)

backups of the configuration can be made via the GUI I read. Is the configuration used on the system stored on the boot drive/disk or in the storage pool too?

Yes, you can do it via the GUI. But, if you want to be *slick* about it, just look into @Bidule0hm 's "Useful Scripts".

System stuff is on the boot drive(s), Pool/Storage stuff is on the Pool/Storage drive(s). They are purposely separated to make things easier.

 

[Wouter]

Agreed. Not as dangerous as if one was talking about a mirrored vdev that was part of a pool. :)


Yes, you can do it via the GUI. But, if you want to be *slick* about it, just look into @Bidule0hm 's "Useful Scripts".

System stuff is on the boot drive(s), Pool/Storage stuff is on the Pool/Storage drive(s). They are purposely separated to make things easier.

ACK, thanx.

About the crypto: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/theft-proof-device.44387/#post-296844 is a nice read.
Still, being more a security person than a storage person, one must not think that a BIOS password is saving the world / keeping your data safe. It's more a nice to have IMHO.

 

[Mirfster]

one must not think that a BIOS password is saving the world / keeping your data safe. It's more a nice to have IMHO

Agreed, the OP was asking for multiple things there so I tried to meet all the request. :)

 

[Wouter]

And another newbie question, just looking for confirmation. My plan is to build a FreeNAS box with the OS on two mirrored flash drives, 5 pieces of WD Red 4TB for storage. This leaves me 1 or 3 (depending on the motherboard that I have to choose/buy) SATA ports available. At a starter, I don't plan to buy an SSD for ZIL and don't plan to buy an SSD for L2ARC. I plan to have 32GB RAM (https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/438411/crucial-ballistix-sport-lt-bls4c8g4d240fsb/specificaties/).
After reading http://doc.freenas.org/9.3/zfsprimer.html#zfs-primer and other pages, am I right that when the system has ran for like 3 days or whatever, I can run the zilstat and arc_summery / arcstat tools and then determine if the system would benefit from buying one or two SSD's, dedicated for ZIL and/or L2ARC and add them via the Volume Manager?

 

[joeschmuck]

Let me ask you this question before you consider a ZIL or L2ARC... What will your NAS be used for? If you are using it for home use then in general do not waste your time as an L2ARC will typically decrease your performance and a ZIL will give you no benefit either. You need to keep in mind what these things are designed for. Now if you are in an office environment where you have several users which are actively using the data on the NAS, such as if you have a database that everyone uses constantly, then you may have a need for the L2ARC. As for the ZIL, if you don't have some high speed network connectivity like 10Gb and lots of throughput, then just make sure you have a good UPS, it would be money better spent.

 

[Wouter]

Thank you for the insight, although it is not answering my question :).

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

although it is not answering my question

Yes, but...

What will your NAS be used for?

This is key, and without knowing the answer, only generalizations are possible.

am I right that when the system has ran for like 3 days or whatever, I can run the zilstat and arc_summery / arcstat tools and then determine if the system would benefit from buying one or two SSD's, dedicated for ZIL and/or L2ARC

It's true that it can take a while for a decent sized ARC to 'warm up'. However, figuring out if you need L2ARC is more a case of measuring performance under typical workloads, not just looking at some stats after a given period of time has elapsed. As for ZIL, unless you have a need for sync writes at high IOPS, don't bother.

 

[joeschmuck]

am I right that when the system has ran for like 3 days or whatever, I can run the zilstat and arc_summery / arcstat tools and then determine if the system would benefit from buying one or two SSD's, dedicated for ZIL and/or L2ARC and add them via the Volume Manager?

Thank you for the insight, although it is not answering my question :).

I'm going to say the answer is no. It's "no" due to the reasons above and you cannot blindly use the stats by themselves because they could be meaningless if not put into the proper perspective.

I will give you an example here for something a typical home user here would be doing, this is me and how I use my NAS...

I use my NAS for three main reasons:
1) Data Backups of all my computer systems in the house. That would be three laptops and one desktop.
2) Extra Data Storage. Data is stored on my NAS such as programs (like ISO images), technical manuals, photos, a few spreadsheets I routinely use, etc... This makes them handy vice using a copy stored on a DVD-R.
3) Media Streaming. This includes mostly movies but I do have some music files. I run Plex to handle my streaming on the FreeNAS machine.

If you look at all these things you can see that I would have virtually nothing that I would have to access repeatedly except for a few spreadsheets but those do not require instant gratification. When I watch a movie an L2ARC will not make watching a move faster, it will in fact make it slower because FreeNAS will first look to the L2ARC to see if the file is there first but it's not there so now after wasting that time it goes to the pool to find the movie. When I create a backup a ZIL will not make the write operation faster either, you are going to be limited to your network connection or your backup source assuming you have a reasonable FreeNAS system.

 

[jgreco]

it will in fact make it slower because FreeNAS will first look to the L2ARC to see if the file is there first but it's not there so now after wasting that time it goes to the pool to find the movie.

Well that's not really true. The L2ARC is not accessed unless the content is known to be there. Keeping track of L2ARC content, however, does reduce the available ARC, which in turn does tend to make things slower, so kinda the same end result.

 

[joeschmuck]

Well that's not really true. The L2ARC is not accessed unless the content is known to be there. Keeping track of L2ARC content, however, does reduce the available ARC, which in turn does tend to make things slower, so kinda the same end result.

I did dumb it down a bit but thanks for the clarification. And the funny thing is, the slower is measurable but not perceivable in a home system. Well when I tested it out on my system a few years ago I could tell no difference. I was just like everyone else, I had to try it for myself.

 

[Mirfster]

The Intel 10G probably won't pass through if you're doing it as a VF. Which is unfortunate since that'd rock. Maybe that's been fixed, so if you have success with that, please follow up. I don't actually have time to experiment with all the things I'd like to...

/Edit: Oooo... the 10 GB "Mezzanine" NIC I am using is an Intel 82599EB; so according to Intel ARK it does have "VMDq and SR-IOV" support. :)

Update: I just got around to messing with this and while I am a bit green here I was able to do

1. Successfully issue the command: esxcli system module parameters set -m ixgbe -p "max_vfs=8,8"
2. Reboot
3. Lo and behold, this is what I now see:

*** Not 100% sure if I properly set the correct number of virtual functions for the NIC; was guessing based on the example shown here for the "Intel X540 10 GB Ethernet Adapter"

 

[Mirfster]

Doh!! Dagger!!! :(

 

[jgreco]

SR-IOV requires Enterprise Plus. You can get vSphere licensing for real cheap through the VMUG EvalExperience for $200/year, which seems very reasonable. The amount of work VMware puts into vSphere to give it that unified "polish" (even if it annoys me that they're still Windows/Flash/etc-centric) would seem to make that a reasonable investment.

 

[Mirfster]

You can get vSphere licensing for real cheap through the VMUG EvalExperience for $200/year, which seems very reasonable.

Nice!!! Going to check that out right now, see what all is entailed.

 

[Mirfster]

Hmm... Wondering what would be considered "for personal use in a non-production environment" though... Seems kinda touchy..

 

[jgreco]

My interpretation: If you're making money with it - that's bad. If you're using it at home, in a learning mode, and aren't actually dependent on the features for your survival, that's fine.

So even if you might be using SR-IOV in the configuration you can create for FreeNAS, that doesn't make you "dependent" on it because you could turn it off easily enough.

VMware's motivation to provide this software thru VMUG is to encourage familiarity with it by technically-oriented people. They know almost no one is going to be paying for Enterprise Plus for home use unless they're a millionaire, so there's no sales opportunity of consequence there. However, they can make a *little* money, and they do. Their real goal is to price it such that serious people will say "well that's fair" and then will find it so very much better than Xen, KVM, VirtualBox, and even Free ESXi that they will then act as VMware missionaries in their work environments.

 

[John3-6teen]

Thanks everyone for all the great info and advise. I have purchased the following parts and will start putting it together soon:

Supermicro X11SSH-LN4F motherboard
Xeon E3-1240 v5
32GB (2x16) Crucial (Micron) DDR4-2400 EUDIMM - CT2K16G4wfd824A

For now I will put it in an idle Antec ATX case I have on hand with a 550 Watt Antec TruePower Trio PSU. I have a 256GB SATA drive lying around that I'll use for the OS. I'll pick up a few more WD RED 4TB drives to go with the two I already have, but for now I'm just going to put this together and begin learning the ropes of how to configure and use FreeNAS. Once I feel comfortable I know what I'm doing I'll reinstall from scratch with the final number of drives and do something different for the boot drive(s) and eventually get a better case and PSU. I plan to install the latest stable 9.3 FreeNAS.

Now to get started learning FreeNAS and server configuration, etc. Any additional thoughts or help as I get started would be appreciated, but I presume I need to start a new thread in a different forum for help with the rest of it?

Thanks everyone...

 

[Mirfster]

Now to get started learning FreeNAS and server configuration, etc. Any additional thoughts or help as I get started would be appreciated

• Read, tons of great info here. I have several links under "Recommended Reading" in my sig
• Don't be in too much of a hurry, the Burn-In should take at the very least a week and that would be considered a rudimentary burn-in... So you have plenty of time to read... ;)
• There is an "Intro to FreeNas" video (that used to be a free training class) that is located here:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcrxG6aDAa8&feature=youtu.be

but I presume I need to start a new thread in a different forum for help with the rest of it?

Would be a good idea :)

 

[John3-6teen]

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look. I've been doing the reading here in the forums, but I'm one who doesn't totally get retain the information until I've touched it myself.

Any good books out there? I've tried a couple of Barnes & Nobles and didn't find a single one!