FreeNAS Upgrade Questions: 0.7.1 to 8

[holzmann]

Current Setup Running FreeNAS 0.7.1
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.0A Northwood 2.0GHz Socket 478 (circa 2002)
Mobo: ASUS CUSL2 (circa 2002)
RAM: 1.0GB
HDDs: 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Hardware RAID: 3ware 8006-2LP PCI 64-bit SATA 2-port SATA RAID Controller
NIC: Intel PWLA8391GT PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI
RAID TYPE: 1
Share Type: SAMBA

Comments on old hardware: Zero problems to date. *Knocks on wood*

File Server Purpose: Home file server for 3-4 local machines, HDTV, etc.

Upgrade Goals:
1. Capacity Upgrade: 500GB to 2TB or more. (I currently use about 400GB of the 500GB available. This has been enough for me for 3 years.)
2. Speed Upgrade: Faster write times especially would be nice. (I do have a "gigabit network" with appropriate routers, switches, and cables.)
3. Increased reliability.
4. Keep in mind that the system is always on.
5. I would like to use shares as libraries on local Win7 machines.
6. The server does not really do much serving outside of the house. If does, it will do do only through SSH.

Upgrade Ideas:
-Instead of SAMBA, I would like to migrate to NFS shares to increase throughput.
-Instead of hardware RAID, I will probably use the SATA ports on a new motherboard and let FreeNAS do the rest.
-Instead of RAID, I have read a lot of good things about ZFS. I think I am comfortable setting up a a ZFS system within the confines of FreeNAS.
-I like FreeNAS. I plan to upgrade to 8 with this build. I am not really entertaining ideas of WHS, etc.

-Regarding ZFS, I still have not decided whether to do a simple mirror or Z1 or Z2. Obviously this decision also depends on the size and number of HDDs I can buy.

Budget:
$500-$600 USD

Preferred Vedors:
Newegg, Amazon (I prefer to build my own boxes.)


Hardware Option 1 (using newer older spare parts):
CPU: AMD Opteron 170 (supports ECC memory)
Mobo: ASUS A8N SLI Premium (supports ECC memory BUT max. 4GB only)
RAM: 4x 1GB ECC Unregistered DDR400 RAM would cost about 4x $50 or $200.
HDDs: Undecided?

Hardware Option 2 (new build)
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core (ECC Support)
Mobo: ASUS M4A88T-M LE AM3 AMD 880G HDMI Micro ATX (ECC Support)
Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) ECC Unbuffered Server Memory
HDDs: Undecided? (This build would obviously leave less money in the budget for more drives unless I went with 1TB drives instead.)

Questions:
-How necessary (or recommended) is ECC memory for running ZFS?
-Are the SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 HD204UI 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s drives good enough for a ZFS build?
-Obviously I would buy a minimum of two such drives for a mirrored solution. Or a minimum of 3 or 4 for Z1 or Z2 solutions, respectively.
-For my simple home application (refer to Upgrade Goals above), what do you all recommend?

Mistakes:
-Hereforfore I have NOT employed a backup of my RAID 1 system. I know this is a mistake.
-An external 500GB drive enclosure will be used to backup critical elements of the FreeNAS system.


Thanks for reading.

 

[holzmann]

Wow, this is a quiet forum :(

 

[zoo]

First of all, regarding your hardware options, I recently was running an AMD 939 setup and I think you'll find that 4GB is just not enough if you want some nice read/write speeds to a ZFS raid. In all honesty I might recommend you try and sell the 939 stuff on ebay and put that money towards some new stuff.

As far as your second option, while I can't comment on the gains of a quad-core processor, I don't have any issues with my dual core Athlon II X2 250. In my opinion you'd probably be better off saving the $50 difference and putting it towards HDD space.

Questions:
-Are the SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 HD204UI 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s drives good enough for a ZFS build?

Yes, I am using 6 of them. Make sure you check the box for 4k alignment when you create the pool. See my post in the hardware compatibility thread for more notes on the setup.

 

[holzmann]

Hi. Thanks for the reply.

What about my ECC RAM question? Necessary?

With 6x 2TBs, what is your usable storage size?

On the Windows side, must one install Win7 Ultimate before one can utilize NFS shares?

(I do have Win7U. I just don't have it installed.)

 

[zoo]

Hi. Thanks for the reply.
What about my ECC RAM question? Necessary?

If I were to do it again and had a larger "discretionary fund" I would use ECC memory. There are many people on these forums that don't use it (me being one of those people) but for peace of mind and yet another step to prevent bit rot it is probably worth it.

There are many threads on the net about this. I just posted a few here link link link link etc...

With 6x 2TBs, what is your usable storage size?

~7.1 TB after all is said and done.

On the Windows side, must one install Win7 Ultimate before one can utilize NFS shares?

(I do have Win7U. I just don't have it installed.)

NFS in Windows 7 can be temperamental to get setup. I followed this (link). TBH I switched back to a mapped network SMB/CIFS drive on my HTPC from NFS. Sometimes Windows wouldn't mount after reboot, directory browsing hangs etc. I use AFP for the Macs in the house (TimeMachine + media storage) and SMB for the Windows 7 HTPC.

 

[holzmann]

Thanks for your replies, Zoo.

7TB is way more than I need.

I would be happy with 2-3TBs, max. Perhaps I can achieve this by buying 1TB drives instead? How many? 4-5? In RAIDz1 or 2?

 

[holzmann]

As for NFS, the article you link to does not specify Win7 Ultimate, though I think it is required.

 

[zoo]

Thanks for your replies, Zoo.

7TB is way more than I need.

I would be happy with 2-3TBs, max. Perhaps I can achieve this by buying 1TB drives instead? How many? 4-5? In RAIDz1 or 2?

No problem.

The reason I chose a 6 drive Z2 configuration was for a mix of performance and redundancy. I don't want to have to dig out my "closet backup" of the server if I lose a drive and another fails during resilvering. Thus, having 2 drive parity was important. I will admit that I don't know everything there is to know about ZFS configs, but if you're looking for that same mix of performance/stability you might consider a 6 x 1TB configuration. It's also probably a good idea to pick 4k sector size drives so if one fails in the future or if you'd like to upgrade the capacity of the pool without transferring everything from/to the nas, you can replace the drive(s) with larger ones without any issues.

Z1 is similar to RAID5 and Z2 is similar to RAID6 so if you'd like to calculate the usable size here's a link. 1TB ~909GB usable, 2TB ~1818GB usable, 3TB ~2727GB usable

As for NFS, the article you link to does not specify Win7 Ultimate, though I think it is required.

I think you are right. As far as I know NFS is only supported in Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise.

 

[holzmann]

That's a cool link.

So instead of a 2x 2TB config in a mirror configuration, I suppose I will look into a RAIDZ2 using 2x 1TB drives for a total of 2TB usable capacity. Sound right?

(If the price difference between 1TB and 2TB drives is negligible, then I will buy the latter.)

 

[holzmann]

Zoo: Is there a way I can check whether a HDD supports 4K alignment before buying? From newegg.com for example?

 

[rnicolas]

That's a cool link.

So instead of a 2x 2TB config in a mirror configuration, I suppose I will look into a RAIDZ2 using 2x 1TB drives for a total of 2TB usable capacity. Sound right?

(If the price difference between 1TB and 2TB drives is negligible, then I will buy the latter.)

I believe you need to have 4 drives for a RAIDZ2 configuration, two of those drives will be used for parity. So if you have 4 x 1TB drives you will have approximately 2GB of usable space.

Someone please correct me if i'm wrong...