Hardware compression and encryption cards + a few other bits

[Mark Cubitt]

Hi,

Can hardware compression cards be used to do the compression on a volume to take the load of the cpu(s)?

Can hardware encryption cards be use to do volume encryption to take the load of the cpu(s)?

Are there any suggested vendor/models to use for both of the above?

If it helps I plan to use the following hardware (its old kit but I own most of it and i'm on a budget):

Intel S5000PSL Server Board.
2 * ssd's for zil and read cache (suggestions warmly welcomed, I have some ssd's but there old and there desktop grade so i'm not sure there up for the job)
64gb FBDIMM DDR2 (32gb if thats the boards max as I have read both as the max, already own both sets of ram)
1 or 2 xeon cpus (probably L5240 (dual core 3ghz 40w tdp or L5420 quad core 2.5ghz 50w tdp)
either several lsi 9211-8i or the 8e model and a disk shelf (disk shelf Dell MD1000, the amount of cards may impact what compression/encryption cards I could use)
5 * 3tb desktop grade hdd's (already own)
4 * 2tb desktop grade hdd's (already own)
NetApp DS14 MK2 with 13 * 1tb WD1002FBYS and 1 * 1tb hitachi enterprise drive (used as backup not main usage) (already own, fiber card i have lots of options I already own, both pcix and pcie)

I may move some or all of the 1tb drives to the same unit if I buy a newer server case and have them not as backup.

I will be buying some 4-6tb enterprise WD nas drives in the future to use as the main storage (maybe 6 months time).

I currently have a little over 16tb of data currently (in 3 netgear nas devices with the above drives) but I am replacing these and moving from raid 0 to raidz2 (unless there is a better option).

Moving the data has already been sorted in theory and I will do separate volumes for each disk size.

The clients will be a windows pc and several media player devices so samba will be needed (hence the L5240 as its 3ghz) and several ESXi servers.

One other question, if the 64gb ram fits but I don't seem to use more than 32gb is there an advantage to running it in mirrored mode?

Also i'm thinking about faster ways of attaching my main pc and maybe 1-2 ESXi servers and options seem to be 4gb fiber (I have lots of 4gb fiber kit including 2 16 port switches) or 20gb infiniband using IPoIB.

If i could afford to buy new kit for this I would but I can't so please don't just suggest that.

Any notes greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance and thanks for reading the far to long message :)

Mark

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Can hardware compression cards be used to do the compression on a volume to take the load of the cpu(s)?

Can hardware encryption cards be use to do volume encryption to take the load of the cpu(s)?

Are there any suggested vendor/models to use for both of the above?

1. LZ4 compression (the default) imposes no measurable load on the CPU, so hardware compression is pointless.
2. Anything that gets between ZFS and the hard drives is a bad idea.
3. Therefore, there are no suggested hardware solutions.

2 * ssd's for zil and read cache (suggestions warmly welcomed, I have some ssd's but there old and there desktop grade so i'm not sure there up for the job)
64gb FBDIMM DDR2 (32gb if thats the boards max as I have read both as the max, already own both sets of ram)

With 32GB, the chances of L2ARC being beneficial are low. If the 64GB fits, it might be worthwhile.

One other question, if the 64gb ram fits but I don't seem to use more than 32gb is there an advantage to running it in mirrored mode?

Just make sure the entire setup supports ECC and be done.

 

[Mark Cubitt]

Thanks for the reply and i'll have a play with lz4 on, tbh I just assumed it would take a lot of cpu resources as I read encryption does and just put 2 + 2 together, looks like I got 5 so to speak.

Also its good to know the memory mirroring isn't needed.

 

[Sakuru]

If you plan to use encryption make sure you understand it completely. It's pretty easy to mess up in 9.3. Also ask yourself the question of whether you REALLY need full disk encryption of your NAS. It is probably safer to store files that need to be encrypted in a TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt volume.

 

[Mark Cubitt]

Thanks for the reply Sakuru and yes I agree with you, I have been reading up on the disk encryption and have decided against it.