hardware configuration question

[eldog68]

Hi,
I am looking to build a freenas box for business production so reliability is key. I have a bare chassis Dell PowerEdge 2950 with 2 dual core processors 8gb ram and a PERC5 controller. I am looking to add 6 WD RE4 500GB hard drives for storage I am thinking I would use a 5 disk raid5 array and the 6th disk as a hotspare. I was planning on configuring a hardware raid using the perc5 controller. I was also looking at using a Super Talent PCIe SSD drive for the freenas OS. Does anybody have any thoughts on this configuration will it work will it last I would like to see it run 3 years is this possible?

Thanks for your input,
Matt

Hard Drives
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=30

PCIe SSD
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YCUQN6/?tag=ozlp-20

 

[louisk]

It is certainly possible to run a FreeNAS box in production for 3yrs.

For the SSD, I would ask what problem you're trying to solve, and what real gains will you see with your proposed solution.

Are you planning on upgrading the size of the disks down the road (1yr, 2yr)? 2.5T isn't very much in today's enterprise. If you're wanting to upgrade the disks, I would look to the future, configure each spindle as a RAID0 volume on the PERC and use ZFS to manage your RAID and volumes. Down the road, you will be able to swap out your 500G spindles for 2T spindles if you want and ZFS will grow with you (yes, there are particular details about how you have to replace all spindles before you see the increase in space).

 

[eldog68]

Louisk,
Thank you for the reply. The reason for the SSD PCIe card is the 2950s only storage is on the backplane and I want all of that for the data. They have no internal bays or power connectors for additional drives. As for the storage amount, I am wavering between the 500s and 1TB drives. Currently they only have 400GB so I am not overly concerned about the amount of space. I mainly want to get confirmation that this config will work and last 24x7 365 for 3yrs or so. The environment is a radio station, and this server will store commercials that are accessed by 6 on-air servers all day everyday.

Thanks

 

[louisk]

I've been using a pe2850 for the last few years. The only time it goes down is for scheduled firmware upgrades of FreeNAS. I am using a usb stick instead of an internal spindle. I haven't noticed any performance issues from the usb stick. I can saturate both 1g links (802.3ad).

 

[eldog68]

Ok, I was concerned about the longevity of a USB stick that is why I was considering using the PCIe card. Do you know a reason I should use a USB stick instead of the PCIe card other than cost difference?

 

[louisk]

Well, flash is flash
I would probably get 2 usb sticks, and then backup the config once you have it the way you want. Then its a 5min process to spin up a duplicate machine with the same config. Just insert the usb stick, and upload the config, reboot, you're back in production. Even if the usb stick worked for 1yr, given the size requirement, you could probably buy 10 of them for $40 and you'd have a 10yr supply of disks for your NAS.

As to an actual reason to not use a PCIe card (discounting cost), I don't have one. I've never used them. I can't speak to compatibility, performance, anything. Unless you're thinking of FusionIO, in which case, they are awesomely fast, and unfortunately, also awesomely expensive.

 

[eldog68]

is it possible to backup the config to a second usb drive while the box is live or do I have to stop services to create a backup? If I backup the config to a usb drive is that all I need to do to make the second USB drive ready to work? if I make a change and create a new backup of the config on the second drive will that cause a problem?

 

[eldog68]

Louisk,
Do you have one particular usb drive that works better than others. I would prefer San Disk I think they are probably the most reliable usb drives but I am asking cause I am not sure if there is another one that is better for this application.

Thanks

 

[louisk]

When you backup the config, it's just a text file. You can restore it onto other FreeNAS machines, just make sure they are on an isolated network. You might even be able to accomplish it with VMware workstation or Fusion, but I haven't tried it.

I've actually been using what ever was cheapest for the usb stick. I have several. Looking at the labels, I seem to put a new stick in any time an upgrade required building a new FreeNAS (I think there was 1 or 2 times with v0.6.x - v0.7.x and then of course for v8.0 which required building fresh as there was no upgrade vector).

 

[eldog68]

ok, can I build the freenas box with 1 usb backup the config and then rebuild the box with a second usb and restore the config? this way I have a bootable unit with the config onhand and its the matter of change usb drives and reboot? I want to minimize my downtime as much as possible. Another question is I plan to use the freenas box with ISCSI targets connected to 2 windows 2003 servers in a file cluster is this a config that is still easily backed up and restored as we are discussing or is this to complex for a quick restore?

 

[louisk]

Yes, you can have multiple usb sticks with the config on them. I would also suggest you store the config somewhere you make regular backups. I would probably also keep a local copy of the ISO used to install, just in case you have to reconstruct your usb stick from scratch, should something bad happen.

I've never setup iSCSI, so I can't speak to specifics, but it's my understanding that all config data for FreeNAS is stored in the config file, so once you back that up, you're OK. It should be easy enough to test this, just build a new usb stick, restore the config and see if the iSCSI works.

 

[eldog68]

Thanks for all your advice, I think I will proceed with the USB flash drives and not worry about the PCIe SSD.