FreeNAS Newb help picking hardware.

[eddie200112]

9

but how do you get to that answer?

 

[Bidule0hm]

By calculus :) look at the RAID calculator I made (link is in my sig) if you want to see the result for different configurations ;)

 

[Ericloewe]

How does everyone feel about the different brands of memory for super micro boards? Samsung, micron, Hynix, others?.. Crucial? Should I not deviate from the tested models on the supermicro website or have people had success with other sticks?

I have a guide for that. Check my sig.

 

[eddie200112]

Thanks. Next question if I have ample RAM theres really no need for an L2ARC right?

 

[Ericloewe]

Thanks. Next question if I have ample RAM theres really no need for an L2ARC right?

Yeah, mostly.

For small systems (less than 64GB), an L2ARC will almost certainly be detrimental to performance, too.

 

[eddie200112]

Awesome thanks. Also from reading cyberjockeys powerpoint, I noticed it says never to make a zpool qith more than 11 disks. Is there anything wrong with 10 or 11? Is it just a system limit or something that ruins performance or quality as the zdev gets larger?

 

[Bidule0hm]

It's purely for reliability. Personally I set the limit at 12 drives ;)

 

[Ericloewe]

Awesome thanks. Also from reading cyberjockeys powerpoint, I noticed it says never to make a zpool qith more than 11 disks. Is there anything wrong with 10 or 11? Is it just a system limit or something that ruins performance or quality as the zdev gets larger?

Not a pool, vdevs. A pool can grow to absolutely insane sizes (if the system can handle it, CPU and RAM-wise), but single vdevs shouldn't be too wide.

 

[cyberjock]

I didn't say never to make a zpool with more than 11 disks. I said never to make a vdev with more than 11 disks. ;)

Performance decreases in pretty ugly ways.

 

[eddie200112]

OK I just got a x10srh-cf for a deal on ebay since I'll need more than 10 drives. And I'm debating on the e5-1620 or the 1650. Should the 4 cores of the 1620 be just fine or would 6 cores be preferable.

 

[eddie200112]

Ah sorry my mistake I meant vdev.

 

[eddie200112]

OK thanks for all the help so far everyone! So far my setup consists of
Supermicro X10SRH-CF, Xeon e5-1620 v3, 32GB DDR4 RDIMM Samsung.

Now my attention has moved to HDD's I currently have 5x 4TB WD Black drives and have a total of 14.75TB of data.

So im wondering as it seems its more effective in terms of available storage space to have one large vdev of say 10 4TB drives compared to 2 vdev with 5 each.

But that's getting close to the 11 drive limit cyberjockey recommends against. Is it OK for me to add different 4TB drives to the vdev as the ones I currently have since the WD black line is a bit of a price premium? Any reason not to mix and match brand etc? And whats the detailed reasoning behind the ~11-12 drive vdev limit.

Also in the storage space calculator is sets aside a specified amount for free space? is this needed for performance or something? can I ignore it?

and consider I will really only be using this as a media server and storage, so once my library has been loaded to it it wont change much.

 

[Bidule0hm]

Also in the storage space calculator is sets aside a specified amount for free space? is this needed for performance or something? can I ignore it?

If you talk about the 80% rule then yes it's needed for the CoW to avoid too much fragmentation. No, you can't ignore it unless you want very poor performances ;)

 

[danb35]

but how do you get to that answer?

You really need to keep about 20% of your pool free, so if you need to store 20 TB, you need ~ 24 TB of net capacity in your pool. Using 4 TB disks, that would take six of them (6 x 4 TB = 24 TB). RAIDZ3 uses three disks' worth of parity, which you'd need to add to the six disks you need for data. 6+3=9. This really isn't too complicated--I can't help thinking you're making it much more complicated than it needs to be.

 

[eddie200112]

You really need to keep about 20% of your pool free, so if you need to store 20 TB, you need ~ 24 TB of net capacity in your pool. Using 4 TB disks, that would take six of them (6 x 4 TB = 24 TB). RAIDZ3 uses three disks' worth of parity, which you'd need to add to the six disks you need for data. 6+3=9. This really isn't too complicated--I can't help thinking you're making it much more complicated than it needs to be.

I get all that I'm not confused about that. I'm just curious as to the best setup now especially because I don't know the underlying reason not to exceed 11-12disks. and going by the calcs it seems its better to have one large vdev compared to several smaller vdevs. Also if its ok to mix and match same size HDD's but that are diff models or brands. Any performance concers?

 

[eddie200112]

Can I use 2 different brands or models of 4TB disks? Say 5x WD black 4TB drives and 5 or 6x WD Red 4TB drives or is that asking for trouble?
Does a larger or smaller vdev put more strain on the drives? and therefore should I aim for say a 7 drive vdev instead of 11-12 drive?

 

[eddie200112]

Also in your opinions what do you consider a good "brand" name USB flash drive? Kingston? Mushkin? Corsair? PNY?

 

[eddie200112]

OK I just ordered 6 WD 4TB Black drives WD4003FZEX drives to add to my 5 WD 4TB Black WD4001FAEX drives. Those should work just fine together right?

 

[Z300M]

Also in your opinions what do you consider a good "brand" name USB flash drive? Kingston? Mushkin? Corsair? PNY?

"Kingston" is a dirty word around here these days. Just search for the name on the forums and you'll find out why.

I am booting from mirrored 16GB SanDisk Cruzer Fit flash drives. The 8GB Cruzer Fit drives I tried previously kept throwing errors; perhaps the 16GB ones are a newer design.

 

[jmterry]

OK I just ordered 6 WD 4TB Black drives WD4003FZEX drives to add to my 5 WD 4TB Black WD4001FAEX drives. Those should work just fine together right?

I am confused about drive purchasing also. Are you planning on using all of the above drives in a single vdev in raidz2 or raidz3 or are you going to create two vdevs? I read above the discussion about the max number of drives in a vdev should be held to about 12, so it would make sense to me that you would be planning on using 11 for 8+3 in raidz3 for 32Tb. I am starting out and have no exact storage requirements, but I am trying to pick a number and size of drives considering price points. 11 x $200 dollar drives is out of my budget at the moment. I am thinking possibly 7 x 1Tb drives in raidz2 for 5Tb. Any advice on type of drives? Does one need to stick with enterprise class drives as well?