BUILD help with amd based freenas

[mull3r]

hi,

i have tried my best to read up on the tutorial, as per cyberjocks advise, kindly do not throw me under the bus if what i ask reeks of ignorance.
with that out of the way.
i am planning to build an amd based system. As the only option available to me in india is to either go with the asus p9xd mobos which make the whole setup costly or go with the x79 motherboards. super micro has not landed in a cost effective way in our country.
so here goes.

my objectives
1. really secure data, not encryption as such but i cannot loose the stuff i store. it would contain important documents, photos and priceless videos and memories and some videos which i may at a later stage stream to my htpc.
2. i know raidz1 and 5 are out.
3. also i will go with ecc ram.

now , im not in a position to get 4 wd reds, in one go. so i will have to start with one and work upwards of that.

the build i propose is

fx 6300,
m5a 99x evo -- i heard it has iommu( i dont know if i would need it in a later stage)
Intel EXPI9301CT

and some 16 gigs of ram.

what i'd like to know is

1. should i go with zfs mirror and is zfs mirror secure viz a vis raid z2. which is more secure.

2. i was planning to go for 2* 3tb wd red drives in zfs mirror. what kind of write speeds can i expect? are the write speeds two low?


thanks in advance

 

[solarisguy]

If you intend to place importance on data security, then RAID-Z2 is a better option. But then there are only two choices for you, since you cannot change a number of disks in a RAID after it is configured:

1. 4x WD Red
2. 6x WD Red (the next preferred number is 10x WD Red, but from your post that is not attainable)

5, 7, 8 and 9 of drives are not recommended for performance reasons for RAID-Z2. But if your data needs and budget dictate 5 drives in RAID-Z2, then performance would be your tradeoff.

You cannot change RAID-1 into RAID-Z2. But as far a mirror (RAID-1) performance is concerned it could be slightly less than performance of a single drive for writes, and potentially a little bit more than a single drive for reads.

 

[mull3r]

thanks a lot for the reply, so i guess i would have to go with 4 drives.

also i read elsewhere that, one could use wd greens with widdle.

can i use four of these wd caviar green -- (WD10EZRX) in raidz2 ?

http://www.flipkart.com/wd-caviar-g...viar&ref=fc35dfd8-6d2f-4e8b-a78e-9888060b8443

or is it too much of a risk? has anyone used these drives in freenas without failures? also at my place the reds have 3 yr warranty and the caviar greens come with 2 yrs warranty.. so if i am to use 4 drives I may as well go with the greens?

 

[Ericloewe]

The greens are fine, as long as you change the idle timer with wdidle. They're probably the exact same drives as the Reds (and Purples) with different firmware.

 

[solarisguy]

In some review pictures, one can easily see that electronic board on WD Green drives has one accelerometer, while WD Red drives have two accelerometers, so the whole electronic circuitry could be different between these two series. Accelerometers are easy to spot and when there are two of them they are most likely placed next to each other.

 

[Ericloewe]

In some review pictures, one can easily see that electronic board on WD Green drives has one accelerometer, while WD Red drives have two accelerometers, so the whole electronic circuitry could be different between these two series. Accelerometers are easy to spot and when there are two of them they are most likely placed next to each other.

Could be, but they could just as easily be from different periods (newer Greens may have the Reds' circuit board, for instance). In the end, it doesn't really matter - they work just fine, with their timers properly set.

 

[DJABE]

Go with Green drives, I believe they screwed us with Reds, for a 40% higher price and a different label! xD
Your only concern would be - does your ecc/mobo configuration really works with single bit error correction...

 

[Ericloewe]

Go with Green drives, I believe they screwed us with Reds, for a 40% higher price and a different label! xD
Your only concern would be - does your ecc/mobo configuration really works with single bit error correction...

40% higher? That's something I've never seen. The premium is ~20 bucks, or a bit less than 15% for 4TB drives (I'd have to check lower capacities).

 

[solarisguy]

Pricing can be very localized, but around 15% price difference between Green and Red 4TBs is very popular. It could be that at his location there is some additional import duty or tax on professional hardware, or items that are not green.