Frustrated with Windows 2019, looking at FreeNAS

[ChrisHH]

Current hardware:

SuperMicro 846E
X9DRI-F
2x Intel E5-2630L V2
64GB ECC REG
HP H220 IT Mode or LSI 9201-8i
Intel X550T2 Ethernet Converged Network Adapter
1 x 500GB Samsung SSD for OS
6 x HGST 6TB NAS
9 x Seagate IronWolf 6TB
2 x 10TB WD White label
5 x 8TB WD White label
4 x 250GB Samsung SSD
4 x 500GB Samsung SSD
2 x 1TB Intel 660p on PCIE adapter cards
1 x StarTech USB 3.1 x 2 card

Currently, I have a little over 30TB of data stored on a storage pool comprised of 14 x 6TB drives in a mirrored array. The NVMe drives are a mirrored array that I run the VM's off of and the 4 x 500GB SSDs + 6 WD White label drives make up a tiered storage pool, but aren't really utilized.

My main goal is to have an environment that is:

1. Storage of media (UHD movies, 4k video clips, photos, music, tv shows), documents, local desktop backups and games (Steam, Origin, etc).
2. Host 6 Windows VMs which are roughly 600GB total. Active Directory Domain Controllers, Web Servers, App Server and SQL Server.
3. Host Plex for streaming of files, no transcoding necessary, 3 streams at the most.
4. Fully utilize the 10Gbe interface with desktops on local network. Should be able to pull/push video for editing, UHD backups, pull down games, quick backups, etc.
5. Can sync with Google Drive.

Is there anything in the current hardware configuration that I should swap out?

What is the recommended drive usage? I know I have more drives than slots, but it's what I have available to leverage.

 

[Ericloewe]

The disks are a bit of a grab bag, but the system should be pretty decent. The CPUs might be on the anemic side of things and more RAM may be beneficial, but both are easily solved down the road if needed.

 

[pschatz100]

Think about cooling and watch your temps. The HGST drives run hot.

 

[ChrisHH]

I've actually made some changes to the hardware and implemented FreeNAS.

It now has 128GB RAM, 24 6TB drives (6x HGST, 18 Ironwolfs) and a Samsung 970 1TB for L2ARC. I made it a 4 x 6 raidz2 pool. The HGST's are intermixed and will probably be replaced over time, but temps seems pretty consistent across the enclosure.

I also purchased a second 2U SuperMicro server and 45 bay enclosure locally. The server itself now hosts Windows 2019 and a replica freenas VM (along with the original VMs). I pass the controller and 10 WD white labeled drives to it. They are in a raidz2 pool. A direct 10Gbe connection between both servers allow for pretty much direct access for replication. No complaints so far.

Overall, I like freenas for storage far better than Storage Spaces. The performance is more consistent and the reporting/monitoring is top notch. Pretty happy with the experience and how straight forward it was to get it going.