Keen to start something

[Razor]

Hi all,

I have been looking at this for a while and done hours of research but I'm not much the wiser.

The background for this is to support my growing household media and file sharing needs.

Previously I used a Western Digital Mybook Live which died abruptly. It was starting to struggle anyway.

Since then, I am using both KodI and Plex to serve media on a micro SFF Lenovo M92p I5-3470T with a couple of USB drives attached. It also hosts shared files. Whilst this is functional, it can get overwhelmed.

It serves 3 media centers, 4 desktops, 4 Ipads and 5 laptops.

Now I can just eBay a HP N54L, however I am concerned this will also be flooded.

Therefore I think I need a real server? I am looking something with a couple of NIC ports to team with a HP Managed Procurve (HP 1810-8G Switch (J9449A)). I would like to virtualization Freenas and Win10 if I can to host Plex and Kodi?

First up, my budget is sub $300. Mainly because I'm scared I wont be able to get it working.

For hardware:
I have a number of HDD floating around. 2x3.5" 1.5tb, 1x3.5" 1TB, 1x3.5" 5TB, 3x2.5" 2TB, 1x60GB SSD, 1x128GB M2. Can I mix different drives capacities under ZFS?
I also have 4x4gb Kingston RDimm kvr1333d3d8r9s/4gi

So after looking at various server options such as HP M110 I found the Dell T310 seems reasonable accessible.

These are the specs I have for the T310:
-1x Intel Xeon X3430 (2.4GHz/4-core/8MB)
-8gb ram
-Perc 6/IR w/ Caddies + breakout for 4 SAS or sata drives
-LTO3 HH Tape drive

I found there maybe some issue with the T310 as the X3430 may not support UG (Guest Virtualization?) https://www.dell.com/community/PowerEdge-General-HW/DELL-T310-and-FREENAS/m-p/5179061

Also, will the Perc 6ir support larger drives over 2TB when flashed to LSI firmware? I can't find anything on this.

I would appreciate any alternative hardware suggestions as well if above is the wrong path.

Thanks all.

 

[danb35]

I am looking something with a couple of NIC ports to team with a HP Managed Procurve (HP 1810-8G Switch (J9449A)).

Teaming really isn't that good of a solution in most cases. See https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/lacp-friend-or-foe.30541/

Can I mix different drives capacities under ZFS?

You can, but you'll likely lose capacity. The capacity of a vdev is limited by the smallest device in the vdev, so if you put a 500 GB in a vdev (RAID set) with three 1 TB disks, it will be treated as though all the disks are 500 GB.

Perc 6/IR

The PERC 6 is a very poor option for FreeNAS, as it won't act as a straight HBA.

You can get a lot of performance-per-dollar with used hardware, but you'll lose in energy efficiency. Another older server that's been recommended a bit is the Dell C2100; see https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/ode-to-the-dell-c2100-fs12-ty.43665/.

 

[Razor]

Teaming really isn't that good of a solution in most cases. See https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/lacp-friend-or-foe.30541/


You can, but you'll likely lose capacity. The capacity of a vdev is limited by the smallest device in the vdev, so if you put a 500 GB in a vdev (RAID set) with three 1 TB disks, it will be treated as though all the disks are 500 GB.

The PERC 6 is a very poor option for FreeNAS, as it won't act as a straight HBA.

You can get a lot of performance-per-dollar with used hardware, but you'll lose in energy efficiency. Another older server that's been recommended a bit is the Dell C2100; see https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/ode-to-the-dell-c2100-fs12-ty.43665/.

Thanks danb35

For mixed HDD, can FreeNAS JBOD?

For teaming, can FreeNAS use the same hashing algorithm as my switch? If not I guess the only real option is 10GB-T and a new switch noting it seems odd. My work IT guys just used teaming at work to a switch stack. Apparently it works better than a 10GB Fiber switch via SFP+? This is a $100k build!

I have seen elsewhere that the Perc 6 can be flashed with LSI firmware so it acts as a HBA? https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/anyone-use-the-dell-sas-6-ir-controller.589/

C2100 is not an option in AU as far as I can tell and I'm really looking at towers. Maybe a T610 but this and the C2100 CPU's have the same TDP as the X3430 at 95w anyway. Rack servers are typically noisy, more power hungry and hot in my experience.

 

[wblock]

That thread is from 2011. The Perc 6 is an ancient, long-obsolete card that, last I knew, could only see the first 2TB of a drive.

Trying to go cheap on stuff like this ends up costing more in the long run. A Dell H310 can be had for under $50 and is an LSI9211-8i, the gold standard for HBAs.

Other stuff, like teaming, sounds like premature optimization. Using that kind of stuff can be an end in itself for some people. If you just want to use the NAS, less complex is better.

Oh, and about that RDIMM: be aware that many modern ECC-capable motherboards want a UDIMM, an *un*-registered ECC DIMM.

 

[Razor]

That thread is from 2011. The Perc 6 is an ancient, long-obsolete card that, last I knew, could only see the first 2TB of a drive.

Trying to go cheap on stuff like this ends up costing more in the long run. A Dell H310 can be had for under $50 and is an LSI9211-8i, the gold standard for HBAs.

Other stuff, like teaming, sounds like premature optimization. Using that kind of stuff can be an end in itself for some people. If you just want to use the NAS, less complex is better.

Oh, and about that RDIMM: be aware that many modern ECC-capable motherboards want a UDIMM, an *un*-registered ECC DIMM.

Ok so no real issue with the T310 but the controller is rubbish. What about the on board SATA? If this works and I can get it running and get the controller card later.

 

[Razor]

This is pushing my budget but any thoughts on this? No detail on the storage controller without calling them.

HP ProLiant DL380 G6 8-Bay 4 Core Server Xeon E5530 2.4GHz 10GB RAM 4x72GB HDD

Or

HP ProLiant DL380 G7 1 x E5645 2.4GHz 6 Core(s) CPU 8Gb RAM

Yes I know it’s not a tower which I would prefer.