Going for first FreeNAS build on a HPE ProLiant Gen8 G1610T

[Ugly-051]

After reading through the recommended hardware guide I was trying to put together a new build for my Hyper-V lab. I came up with a couple of builds but then deicide to have a look at one of the HPE Gen8 servers that a few people I know have recommended before.

I’m going to be using FreeNAS to provide SMB3 storage to SCVMM and the Hyper-V hosts, which currently run on two Dell R410 servers.

I’m specifically looking at the HPE ProLiant Gen8 G1610T server with 4GB RAM at less than £200. As previously I had exceeded this amount when trying to put my own together.

I’ve also seen a couple of posts on here where people have ran these with FreeNAS and had no issues so think I’ll give this one a go for my first build.

Things I’m going to do:

• Add-in another 4GB of ECC RAM.
• Add-in approx 2-4 TB of SAS disks.

http://www.ebuyer.com/722189-hpe-proliant-gen8-4gb-ram-microserver-ebuyer-com-819185-421

 

[Jailer]

I’m going to be using FreeNAS to provide SMB3 storage to SCVMM and the Hyper-V hosts

I'm not any kind of expert on this but presenting storage over SMB to VM hosts seems like it would be a performance nightmare.

 

[Ugly-051]

I'm not any kind of expert on this but presenting storage over SMB to VM hosts seems like it would be a performance nightmare.

SMB is the recommended soltuion for Hyper-v, it also supports ISCSI as does FreeNAS so there are other options I could use if need be.

 

[Jailer]

Curious to see how this turns out. Make sure you report back once you've got things up and running.

 

[Ugly-051]

Curious to see how this turns out. Make sure you report back once you've got things up and running.

Sure thing!

 

[snaptec]

The gen8 with additional ram works flawlessly.
As said in another thread, have some of them running at customers without problems (except for one eating USB boot sticks)

But I don't know if it's powerful enough to provide enough performance for vm hosts.
Just use them as file storage.
You can get 2 mirrored vdevs.
So you are very limited what you can get on iops.
How many/ what kind of vms are you running?

Think about maxing the ram to 16gb. Will definitely help.


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[Ugly-051]

The gen8 with additional ram works flawlessly.
As said in another thread, have some of them running at customers without problems (except for one eating USB boot sticks)

But I don't know if it's powerful enough to provide enough performance for vm hosts.
Just use them as file storage.
You can get 2 mirrored vdevs.
So you are very limited what you can get on iops.
How many/ what kind of vms are you running?

Think about maxing the ram to 16gb. Will definitely help.


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Hi, I’m a little unsure on the IOPS at the moment, although it’s just for a small amount of VMs running on two Hyper-V hosts for home lab purposes, so no need for high end performance really.

I'll be buying a 1TB WD Red first then adding in another and use the RAID functions as well as the RAM.

 

[Jailer]

I'll be buying a 1TB WD Red first then adding in another and use the RAID functions as well as the RAM.

You might want to read up on how FreeNAS/ZFS works. You can't just "add in another" to a vdev once it's created.

 

[snaptec]

You can start with 2 drives in a mirror.
When you need more performance or space add another 2 drives.

You could start with one disk and at the mirror disk later. Though I would not recommend that.


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[vibratingKWAX]

I came up with a couple of builds but then deicide to have a look at one of the HPE Gen8 servers that a few people I know have recommended before.

I currently have the Gen8 running for testing FN10. It surely is a very good value!
If performance is unsatisfactory you also have a fifth SATA2-connector usually reserved for ODD but also usable for a 2,5'' SSD. You could also add a more high performance SSD solution to the empty 16x pcie-slot.

If the data of your VMs are not that critical, you could set up a second pool on the SSD and replicate to the safer HDD-pool. Or you could make use of L2ARC or a SLOG... but you should read up on those thoroughly! Also opinions on this differ in the community.

 

[Jailer]

Or you could make use of L2ARC

Not with 16GB max supported RAM you're not.

 

[Ugly-051]

You can start with 2 drives in a mirror.
When you need more performance or space add another 2 drives.

You could start with one disk and at the mirror disk later. Though I would not recommend that.


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Thanks for now I'm still thinking about the need for RAID since it's only a lab and I can back the data up with third-party replication but it'll be a good idea when adding multiple disks.

I currently have the Gen8 running for testing FN10. It surely is a very good value!
If performance is unsatisfactory you also have a fifth SATA2-connector usually reserved for ODD but also usable for a 2,5'' SSD. You could also add a more high performance SSD solution to the empty 16x pcie-slot.

If the data of your VMs are not that critical, you could set up a second pool on the SSD and replicate to the safer HDD-pool. Or you could make use of L2ARC or a SLOG... but you should read up on those thoroughly! Also opinions on this differ in the community.

Cheers, I'll keep a note of that.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[Ugly-051]

I currently have the Gen8 running for testing FN10. It surely is a very good value!
If performance is unsatisfactory you also have a fifth SATA2-connector usually reserved for ODD but also usable for a 2,5'' SSD. You could also add a more high performance SSD solution to the empty 16x pcie-slot.

If the data of your VMs are not that critical, you could set up a second pool on the SSD and replicate to the safer HDD-pool. Or you could make use of L2ARC or a SLOG... but you should read up on those thoroughly! Also opinions on this differ in the community.

Hi, are you running Hyper-V with this setup?

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