Looking for advise on my specific use-case

[chillincool]

TL;DR: I'm already aware that this system is more than enough for FreeNas without making a post. I'm asking a lot of questions that I don't feel necessarily contribute to the intended purpose of this community...so please ignore this whole post if you aren't OK with that.

Use case: It's just me and my wife. I'm a "computer geek" who has half-learned a bunch of stuff and want a lab environment to tinker with. FreeNAS will pretty much exclusively be used to store replaceable media data that I will just re-download in the event of catastrophe. I have a very lucrative job troubleshooting physical copper wire and fiber optics for a top-tier ISP that I'm bored to death with and want to expand my horizons while at home in the hopes that I can gain enough experience in the IT field that I might be able to skip downgrading myself to the pay and monotony of help-desk level work. My wife does construction and is becoming more and more involved in doing the computational work of using blueprints to calculate materials needed for quick and accurate price quotes.

Hardware:
Supermicro 2u chassis w/ redundant 920w platinum rated psu(somewhat set on something that's rack mountable as I already have a few other things rack mounted)
2x v2 intel e5-2630L
64gb(16x 4gb) ddr3 eec ram
2x lsi 9810-8i(it-mode)
4 intel gbit lan ports on mb - may add additional gb ports via pcie or 10gbit depending on future needs
4tb wd red x 5 for raidz - assortment of other hd as needed for other things

Here's my planned setup:

ESXI as host OS

• Freenas - not really looking to be convinced on why this shouldn't be a VM. The appropriate hardware will be set as pass-through. I don't want to lose this data, but if I do...I'll just redownload it. This is largely just a lab and proof of concept.

1. exposed to the internet
2. dedicated hba
3. 4tbx5 sats drives raidz for media
4. will add separate datastore later on as needed
5. plex plugin with the intention of 3-5 simultaneous transcodes - this will be primarily only be used by me/wife. I MAY give access to my mom after I'm satisfied with stability
6. any other jails and/or docker sessions that make sense to run on this VM

• pfsense

1. exposed to the internet
2. openvpn
3. vlans with trunking
4. certain vlans running through vpn, others not
5. firewall

• GNS3

1. exposed to the internet
2. running on partition connected to onboard
3. several virtualized cisco appliances
4. several low end/bare-bone OS installs used only for the purpose of simulating real world connectivity with PCS
5. I may allow a few friends access to this to practice as well

• Linux server install

1. not exposed
2. 2 dedicated hd setup as a mirror, with a remote backup
3. domain server to play with
4. email filtering
5. small database to play with
6. store tax info for 1099 work
7. rtorrent
8. nzbget/couch potato/similar
9. list of files to redownload data stored on Freenas media dataset in the event of a catastrophic failure

• Optional:

Autocad or similar
The wife runs a company that installs pavers, french drains, etc. Would mostly be 2d stuff amounting to editing illustrating 2d things that are similar to blueprints. I know very little about this line of work and the computational requirements of it, but I'd like to give the wife the ability to remote in and draw up simple plans. I didn't plan on adding any type of deducated GPU card in this built, but depending on circumstances, I'd be willing to throw in a Quatro down the line for this...or scrap this idea completely if it isn't realistic.
Home automation
Simple stuff like light control, ac, universal remotes, etc.


My main concerns:
Utmost concern: I'm saving a TON money by going with a DD3 setup. I've been building computers for the last 15 years or so, but not frequently enough to keep track of end of life things. Is it worth the massive price increase to get a ddr4 setup purely for ease of finding replacements when performance isn't a concern? In the future, I may end up building an additional server based on my needs, but I'd like this server to last me as long as possible. I know DDR2 is so hard-to-find at this point that the price is inflated...just looking for someone with more experience to enlighten me on what to expect with DDR3.
Lesser concern: Am I expecting too much out of the 2x v2 e5-3620L's? I've separated my uses basically how I expect them to be separated as far as which VM they are on. Should some of these be combined?

I'm also open to any suggestions anyone has for me to do what I'm looking to do with less hardware...when you're skirting the line between common residential needs and enterprise, sometimes it seems that the sky is the limit as far as hardware goes and my starry-eyed geekiness sometimes takes me down an overly-expensive rabbit-hole.

I'm fully prepared to spend MONTHS fooling with this to get it working the way I want, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I really appreciate any comments, and if someone has a suggestion for a more appropriate place for me to post this, feel free.

Thanks, Chillin

 

[Chris Moore]

e5-3620L's

I would stay away from the L series processors. There is no real advantage to them.
I am using this Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2650 v2 @ 2.60GHz and it works really well for me.

 

[Chris Moore]

Hardware:
Supermicro 2u chassis w/ redundant 920w platinum rated psu(somewhat set on something that's rack mountable as I already have a few other things rack mounted)
2x v2 intel e5-2630L
64gb(16x 4gb) ddr3 eec ram
2x lsi 9810-8i(it-mode)
4 intel gbit lan ports on mb - may add additional gb ports via pcie or 10gbit depending on future needs
4tb wd red x 5 for raidz - assortment of other hd as needed for other things

Is this something you are thinking of buying or something you already have? I think you could do better, but you didn't really sound like you wanted advice.

Still, I think you have some poor choices going here, so I would suggest that you look at this resource to help you get up to speed:

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

 

[Chris Moore]

ESXI as host OS

Are you even going to use FreeNAS? Here is a build log that talks about putting FreeNAS in a VM, if that is what you are thinking of doing.

Build Report: Node 304 + X10SDV-TLN4F [ESXi/FreeNAS AIO]
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...node-304-x10sdv-tln4f-esxi-freenas-aio.57116/

Testing the benefits of SLOG
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/testing-the-benefits-of-slog-using-a-ram-disk.56561

The ZFS ZIL and SLOG Demystified
http://www.freenas.org/blog/zfs-zil-and-slog-demystified/

10 Gig Networking Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/10-gig-networking-primer.42/

Also, you might want to use a SAS expander to increase the number of ports on a single SAS controller instead of using two.
A single SAS controller can run 256 drives by using expanders.
This is the one I would suggest, I use it:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-IBM-46...r-16-Port-SAS-Expander-US-seller/142748488909

If card slots are limited, you can get one that doesn't need a card slot, like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-SAS-Expander-CARD-DELL-PN-5R10N-010141900-000-G/372129423450

 

[Chris Moore]

Is it worth the massive price increase to get a ddr4 setup purely for ease of finding replacements when performance isn't a concern?

No, DDR4 is not worth the extra cost for an individual with a server or two. The price is inflated by the manufacturers creating an artificial shortage of memory. Registered DDR3 is very low cost right now because there is so much of it being retired from commercial server farms where they are replacing old servers with new servers because the scale of their operation makes it feasible from a cost / benefit analysis where they are taking into account the warranty support on new systems as opposed to doing self support, the cost of electricity and the cost of cooling. There are so many factors that come into play in a facility with a large inventory of servers that it can actually save them significant money (I have seen numbers around $1000 per server) over the life of the server to buy a new server instead of running an old server and that really adds up when you have hundreds or even thousands of servers.

Since you don't say where you are from, I don't know if it is a language brier, but the way you have phrased most of your comment, it is more a statement, like this is what I am doing and I don't want you to try and talk me out of it or tell me I am wrong.
That is just how it comes across, as if you really don't want any input; but I have given some because I am guessing it is just a misunderstanding.

If you have questions, please ask. Plenty of people on the forum would be happy to help.

 

[ian351c]

Welcome to FreeNAS!

I'm in a similar position to you and have a similar setup. At a high level, you should be fine running FreeNAS as a VMWare guest and passing though the HBA. I don't dedicate any hardware for the FreeNAS boot, I just use a regular VMDK for that and have nightly config backups for FreeNAS to another drive. I also have VMs for things like firewalls, Plex, Sonarr, HomeSeer and other things. I back up the guest VMs to FreeNAS where appropriate, but I don't host any VMs on either FreeNAS storage or FreeNAS itself. I've been down path of using jails and VMs on FreeNAS for this with FreeNAS itself running on bare metal, but I much prefer the VMWare approach. Besides, if you're looking for marketable skills, VMWare is a good one to have.

Here's my setup (built in 2014) if it helps:
SuperMicro X10SRL-F
SuperMicro SC-836 Chassis
Xeon E5-1620v3
64GB ECC DDR4
IBM M1015 HBA
6x 4TB RAIDZ2
1x Boot SSD for VMWare
2x SSDs for VMs

 

[RickH]

I actually have a very similar home-lab setup. I have an older Lenovo D20 workstation with dual X5670 procs and 96 GB DDR3 RAM. It's running ESXi and has a LSI 2008 HBA passed through to a FreeNAS vm using VT-d.... A couple years ago my wife insisted that I 'consolidate' all of the different 'junk' servers I had laying around, so I built this setup. I run my primary firewall (pfSense) as a VM on this box and handle most of my routing needs directly within the ESXi box only utilizing a small 8 port switch for everything else in the house. I would offer the following suggestions:

I'm saving a TON money by going with a DD3 setup. I've been building computers for the last 15 years or so, but not frequently enough to keep track of end of life things. Is it worth the massive price increase to get a ddr4 setup purely for ease of finding replacements when performance isn't a concern?

In my opinion, for your needs DDR4 just isn't worth it. If it's really that much of a concern for you, use a fraction of the money you would use by upgrading to DDR4 and buy more DDR3 (looking at ebay prices, you could probably double your ram capacity for less than $200).

Lesser concern: Am I expecting too much out of the 2x v2 e5-3620L's? I've separated my uses basically how I expect them to be separated as far as which VM they are on. Should some of these be combined?

While these chips are definitely at the lower end of the E5 series, they should be enough for your needs. In my experience with virtualization, you almost always run out of RAM before you run out of cpu power. The chips in my server are 2 generations older than these (although they actually benchmark pretty close) and I've never even come close to maxing them out. We've had up 4 simultaneous HD streams from Plex w/o any issues. ...this is all assuming you already have the hardware your referenced, if you're buying I would suggest the E5-2670 - these can be found for as low as $175 on ebay and would be a pretty significant performance bump.

I would make the following suggestions to your proposed setup:

• How you're planning on running Plex - I've run Plex in FreeBSD jails in the past, but my current setup runs it on a dedicated Windows VM... It's been my experience that the FreeBSD version of Plex seems to always be lagging a few versions behind the Windows one, and the Windows one provides better support for channel and DVR plugins.
• You mention that you have 2x lsi 9810-8i(it-mode) HBA's - you'll only need 1 of these to connect your 5 drives for FreeNAS, and while this is the perfect HBA for FreeNAS - it's a terrible option for ESXi. For ESXi you're going to want a true RAID card (I use a Dell PercH700 that I had laying around). If you try to install ESXi on an IT mode adapter it will most likely only let you install onto a single drive - you want to make sure that whatever you're using for the boot environment is on VMware's compatibility list.