FreeNas Build & Networking RealTek® 8111F

[CyPerson]

Hello,

I am trying to build a freeNAS server with the ASUS - C60M1-I motherboard. - http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/C60M1I/


So far, I've run into two issue...
1.) The motherboard does not support any type of RAID -- it has 6x SATA III slots... (useless in my opinion with out RAID 0/1/10/5/50/6 support...) I know I can use a software zfs raidz... But, I'd perfer to go with a hardware RAID. Therefore, if I can fix my second issue, I can resolve my first issue with a RAID controller card... which brings us to issue number
2.) The NIC card is a Realtek® 8111F -- from what I've read, this NIC supported in the new version of FreeBSD, but not available in the version of FreeBSD freeNAS is currently using. I tried installing the driver posted in this message: (http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?7402-Realtek-rtl81111f-support). It installed. I was able to view the files in the Kernel directory. And, the loader.conf file was updated as well. However, I was still unable to configure the network configuration. (console option 1) (if you need to see what is posted when I run ifconfig -a, please let me know. Maybe I'm missing something.)

I know I can purchase an Intel NIC (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106036) but that would take up my only PCIe slot... I'd perfer to use the PCIe slot for a RAID controller Card(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115100).

Any ideas or suggestions would be greately appreciated.

Kindly,
Cy

 

[survive]

Hi CyPerson,

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss zfs as a filesystem....I'd at least give it a shot before you go out and throw a couple hundred bucks at a hardware RAID card.

Actually, looking at the board more closely I think it is perhaps a bit to underpowered\un-expandable to really be interesting at all. The 1GHz cpu is going to really drag down your CIFS performance no matter what you do. To be blunt, I'd make real sure that's a platform you even want to commit to before you go ordering more parts.

-Will

 

[andoy31]

yes can you post the ifconfig -a output.

 

[CyPerson]

Thanks for the post, I was able to get the NIC card working. The driver available on the above mentioned posted was for 64bit only. I'm up and running and testing configurations... Thanks guys.

 

[andoy31]

cool! please let us know how's CIF doing? what speed and the current CPU utilization. Thanks!

 

[CyPerson]

The CPU utilization spiked to around 50% at times while copying files using a CIFS share. I moved roughly 100GB of data to a single SATA 1.5 drive, over a gig network at about 30MB/s -- not too bad... I'd be interested to see what this can do with a RAID. Is there a way to email reports from the FreeNAS system?

 

[andoy31]

what's your disk config right now? raid Z1? Z2? HDD spindle speed? brand and type?

ZFS is not good with raid controllers, better to let freenas/ZFS managed the disks

 

[CyPerson]

I have a single disk in the system right now -- Western Digital WD2500KS WD Caviar SE16. Its just an old drive I had laying around to test.

I did not use ZFS, I used UFS...

I'm not a huge fan of software raids, I don't trust them. I'd prefer to have a hardware raid control the disks--having the raid controller configure the MBR of the disk gives me a little peace of mind knowing I could take them to any controller and it would recognize the disks belong to a raid.

as far as the CPU goes, I'm a little confused as to why the dual core 1ghz processor might limit the system. I've looked at manufactured NAS systems and they use 1.2ghz + processors in their NAS(s) with only 256mb RAM. Why is FreeNAS so hungry? Is it ZFS?

I will rebuild the drive with a ZFS file system and see what happens, stay tuned!

thanks!
Cy

 

[Dwell289]

How's ZFS?

I'm about to pull the trigger and buy this board, and came across your post in my research. I'm really interested in knowing if this board is up to the job of being a dedicated nas server. I'm looking at this mobo with the Lian li Q25 and 8GB of memory (plus a dual intel MIC) as my NAS buildout. I'm with you that the CPU looks pretty comparable to most OTS consumer-grade NAS solutions, if not a bit underpowered. I'm really curious to know what type of performance you get from this board with multiple drives and ZFS. From what I've read, 30 MB/S isn't great from a NAS server; was hoping for teh 70-90 range. I'm new to this so it may be that my expectations are too high, but that's what I think I've seen on other consumer/small business NAS devices.

Anyway, not trying to hijack your thread, really just interested in any makeshift benchmarks you have from your buildout.

Chris

 

[CyPerson]

Hi Chris,

I have actually put this project on hold. I would assume you'll get 70-90MBs if not more with a decent raid. On my windows machine with a raid 0 (2 drives) I get any where between 50-80MBps if not more at times. The 30MBPs was a single drive in UFS mode. I did install the drive in ZFS mode and got a few more MBps. If you are ok with using a software RAID this is not a bad board in my humble opinion. its very compact, can handle 8GB memory, has 6x SATA III ports, gigabit network--from the forum post listed above you can get the 64-bit driver for the nic.

I will probably go with a consumer grade NAS, I am really looking to do DLNA services and I tested out some of the FreeNAS plugins, and they seem to be a bit lacking.

If you read the Wiki regarding technical specs for FreeNAS, this board may only be able to handle a 6TB ZFS RAID due to memory limitations--If I understood correctly.

The case you are choosing is nice. May want to check out this one also: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112265 (This was the one I was going to go with. Now i'm going to go with something much more compact.)

Feel free to keep the discussion alive, I may plug a few drives into this just to test it some more. If I can get my hands on some cheap drives, I'll plug them in and test it out and let you know.

Kindly,
Cy

 

[cyberjock]

I'm not a huge fan of software raids, I don't trust them. I'd prefer to have a hardware raid control the disks--having the raid controller configure the MBR of the disk gives me a little peace of mind knowing I could take them to any controller and it would recognize the disks belong to a raid.

You can't take them to ANY controller. You need one of that "family" to work. For instance, if you took a Highpoint 4320 RAID to an Adaptec 5 series, you'd see uninitialized drives.

Until FreeNAS I've never trusted software RAIDs either. They flat out suck. Performance on anything except RAID0 and RAID1 were poor, they were unreliable, and if the OS crashed it was sometimes hard/impossible to actually get the data back. Of course, I've seen companies buy them because they were cheap. Then add in they don't do good backups and a hard drive failure turns into a nightmare. Knowing the limitations that software RAIDs can have is one of the reasons ZFS came about. If the OS crashes, you just install FreeNAS again and do an import. Any OS that supports your version of ZFS will be able to recognize and mount your drive. FreeNAS has the added benefit of allowing you to backup your configuration. If your thumbdrive fails, you're only out the time it takes to make a new USB key, import your ZFS pool and then restore your config. At the most, I'd say an hour to restore the system if your USB key fails completely. That's all but impossible to do in Windows. Even with a hardware RAID.

Not to mention NTFS wasn't designed with the large drive sizes available. When NTFS came out Microsoft said that NTFS would have to be replaced with a whole new design by around 2003(NTFS would be 10 years old then). They've made some improvements, but they have yet to "redesign NTFS". Windows Vista was supposed to get a redesign- WinFS. It was then abandoned when Microsoft cancelled a bunch of planned upgrades for Vista. Now Windows 8 is supposed to get an improved ReFS.. for the server version only. We shall see how well that goes.

 

[CyPerson]

I've purchased 5x 2TB drives and will be setting this up this evening. I'm in the process of downloading the latest release of freeNAS, I'll keep you posted!

 

[CyPerson]

with just a limited time to test (from my mac) I was able to copy over 20GB of data in a little over 6 minutes. This seems pretty fast to me! I completed building the system and am reloading it now as I had major issues with 8.2 Release--could not create new users and set permissions. Loading 8.0.4 P3...

 

[CyPerson]

Hey Chris,

ZFS is fine, works great actually...

CIFS, which is SAMBA SUCKS on this board. AFS is Rock solid though. If I copy something from my pc - through my mac, it will copy very quickly. If I copy it directly from my pc to the nas best I've seen is 58MB/s but would say the average was around 30ish MB/s. As I read more about Samba, its single threaded and very much relies on the cpu. If I was only on a Apple network, this board would rock.

We'll see if I keep it around or not.

good luck!

Kindly,
Cy Person

 

[slth]

Hi CyPerson

I was looking for some performance figures of the Asus C60M1-I and found this thread.

You indicate that performance over CIFS is bad, is this with the CPU fully stressed?
Could you perhaps do some tests over NFS / FTP, as these are not limited to 1 thread?

Also, are you entirely sure that there are no other bottlenecks (e.g. network cabling, network hardware, disk i/o on receiving end) interfering with the results you obtained?

Thank you very much in advance!

 

[CyPerson]

Hello slth,

sorry for the delayed response.

CIFS was terrible with this board... I'm fairly certain it was the CPU. AFP would copy data very quickly (thats why I don't believe it was an I/O issue or network issue). However, from my Windows machines I rarely saw data transfers greater than 40mb/s. I have changed motherboards and processors to something I had laying around (AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5800). I now get an average of 95mb/s. Going this route also allows me to add an additional 10 drives to my Nas, if needed (dont see that happening any time soon, but hey room to grow! ).

Also, let me just say taking this system from one set of hardware to another was a breeze! All that needed configuring was the new network card. ZFS auto imported my raid and I was back up and running in a few minutes!

THANKS FREENAS!!

Kindly,
Cy person