Looking to do iSCSI on new FreeNAS build

[vlad1966]

Hello Everyone,

First, I'd like to mention that currently I have 2 Open Media Vault servers, a main & backup. Each has 4x4TB 7200rpm Toshiba NAS drives, both are connected to my 10Gb network. I might be looking to convert one of these which has an i3-8100 with 16GB RAM info a FreeNAS server because I want to use iSCSI. I think it would be pretty damn cool to mount the storage as a block device using iSCSI to either my Hackintosh or Win10 PC & to actually not just use this as a storage server, but also to run programs off of (games & more).

I know iSCSI is pretty resource-intensive, so would the i3-8100 with 16GB RAM (non-server grade mobo & RAM) be enoguh for a smooth experience? I'm not above adding more RAM to this setup, and would possibly consider server-grade mobo/Xeon if not too expensive with ECC RAM.

Any/all recommendations welcome, & also your experiences with iSCSI on FreeNAS.

Thanks!

 

[Heracles]

Hey Vlad,

A FreeNAS server will never have too much RAM... Still, at the size you are talking about, your 16G should be enough.

The most important part about iSCSI is the pool layout. Know that a single vDev in RaidZ-x will offer you the performance of a single drive, no matter you have 4 or 12 of them in that vDev. To do iSCSI, you would be better with the equivalent of Raid-10, a pool made of many mirrors. With 4 drives, that gives you only 2 vDevs. For a server with a single client, that can do it, but performance will be limited by that.

Can you add a few more mirror to your servers ? The more you will have, the more speed you will get.

Have fun configuring your new service,