FreeNAS cost benefice x performance = SSD can be interesting for log & cache?

[Gregorio Silveira]

Hi guys, I'm creating a storage solution using FreeNAS and would like to make a technical question:

Is it worthy to use 2 SSD devices for cache/log area?

My atual hardware is:

Intel S1200V3RP MB
Xeon E3-1200 V3
8GB RAM ECC
4 2TB disks
2 NIC giga

I'm thinking to use 1 SSD device with 64GB for cache and another one for logs.

This storage will allocate area for VMWare ESXi - hosts O.S. and fileserver Microsoft.

 

[zambanini]

with 8gb ram you will not use l2arc ;) you need at least 64gb of ram. at least.

btw..rtfm and the faqs.

2 disks will not be enough, depending on your vsphere load.

 

[Gregorio Silveira]

nice, I already check about this Zambini. If I install 64GB of memory, can I use this 2 disks (zil n l2arc) and if necessary can I expand with more ssd? make's sense?

I can't presume my workload, need to test.

 

[zambanini]

slog if single threaded, multiple ssd do not make sense. you may mirror the slog. take care of the powerloss and so on. but since you read the faqs... you do not need further answers.

 

[Gregorio Silveira]

nice, thank you.

I'm reading the " FreeNAS Guide 9.2.1 " and solving a lot of questions.

 

[sfcredfox]

Go through the performance forum. There are a lot of posts about using FreeNAS for iSCSI and VMware. Some of them will read grim and hopeless, but you can achieve decent performance if you follow some of the recommendations appropriately, use the right hardware, etc - In other words, 'Do it right'.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/some-insights-into-slog-zil-with-zfs-on-freenas.13633/
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/iscsi-sharing-issue-multiple-esx-hosts.5702/
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...esting-your-freenas-system.17750/#post-148773
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...rmance-numbers-on-a-new-freenas-server.24234/

Here are some other interesting posts, but there are tons out there. You'll want to do a ridiculous amount of reading before you start buying, or I guarantee you'll waste some money somewhere, trust me.

 

[Gregorio Silveira]

slog if single threaded, multiple ssd do not make sense. you may mirror the slog. take care of the powerloss and so on. but since you read the faqs... you do not need further answers.

Go through the performance forum. There are a lot of posts about using FreeNAS for iSCSI and VMware. Some of them will read grim and hopeless, but you can achieve decent performance if you follow some of the recommendations appropriately, use the right hardware, etc - In other words, 'Do it right'.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/some-insights-into-slog-zil-with-zfs-on-freenas.13633/
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/iscsi-sharing-issue-multiple-esx-hosts.5702/
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...esting-your-freenas-system.17750/#post-148773
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...rmance-numbers-on-a-new-freenas-server.24234/

Here are some other interesting posts, but there are tons out there. You'll want to do a ridiculous amount of reading before you start buying, or I guarantee you'll waste some money somewhere, trust me.

Thank you guys! have a nice year!