My Dream System (I think)

[Ericloewe]

So I read the info about the NIC. It would be nice to have the ability to use that NIC and make it have two MAC addresses (two WAN IPs) so I can connect a single Cat5 cable between my modem and the server. I don't believe that is possible to have two MAC addresses for the NIC port. I wonder if I used a dual LAN port card, if I could force both MACs across a single LAN connection in ESXi.

Have you checked if the i350 can do that? The i210 can, but only with IPMI, AFAIK.

 

[joeschmuck]

So, thanks for the help because I was able to create a new vSwitch1 using the second i210 port and called it WAN. This port was physically connected to my modem using a single cable. I connected the second WAN vSwitch to Sophos and it got an IP address. I then connected one of my Windoze VM to the WAN as well and it received a second IP. IPchicken confirmed that the IPs were different.

Now all I need to do is create a second Sophos and connect it to the WAN and then I will have two WAN IPs.

I think this will all work out fine once I have some more time to drop my internet from the family. Yes, I need to get them occupied doing something else while I play.

I've attached two screen captures: First is ESXi vSwitch configuration. The second if my modem showing that I can have a max of 2 IPs but I only have 1 assigned during this screen shot.

 

[Black Ninja]

So I read the info about the NIC. It would be nice to have the ability to use that NIC and make it have two MAC addresses (two WAN IPs) so I can connect a single Cat5 cable between my modem and the server. I don't believe that is possible to have two MAC addresses for the NIC port. I wonder if I used a dual LAN port card, if I could force both MACs across a single LAN connection in ESXi.

Here is just an idea:
Make a Virtual switch in esxi and assign one real NIC adapter to it. This adapter will be physically connected to your modem (one cable only , as you want) Then you can connect both your sophos VM's WAN ports to the virtual switch and your are done.

 

[Black Ninja]

Ohh god. I did see they were new posts after your question in #480 so I answer with suggestion , and then I read that you already done just that.

How funny

 

[RichTJ99]

I have a X11SSL-CF-O (https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C236_C232/X11SSL-CF.cfm). I am using it as a home lab & want to setup a 3rd freenas box for 2ndary backups.

I am having a hard time finding the right cable on Amazon.

Is this the right thing to get https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BTEYLEQ/?tag=ozlp-20

My plan is to setup a freenas VM, pass the LSI 3008 controller to freenas & plug some 6tb drives in for a raidz1 backup.

Is this the right cable though?

 

[joeschmuck]

I have a X11SSL-CF-O (https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C236_C232/X11SSL-CF.cfm). I am using it as a home lab & want to setup a 3rd freenas box for 2ndary backups.

I am having a hard time finding the right cable on Amazon.

Is this the right thing to get https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BTEYLEQ/?tag=ozlp-20

My plan is to setup a freenas VM, pass the LSI 3008 controller to freenas & plug some 6tb drives in for a raidz1 backup.

Is this the right cable though?

That appears to be the correct cable but keep in mind, I don't have that motherboard so I'm just looking at what I can find by doing a Google Search. Too bad the user manual doesn't specify the connector type. Didn't you ask this question a few months ago?

 

[RichTJ99]

So anyone else interested that Amazon link does work & my Freenas VM does recognize the drives.

 

[RichTJ99]

Just a question about my Freenas being virtualized.

I am running esxi 6 with the Sas3008 card being passed through to the Freenas VM. The freenas VM has a 8gb virtual disk. I also gave the VM 24 gigs of ram which are dedicated only to that VM, it has 1 CPU also.

I added 5x 6tb wd red drives on the Sas port (Zraid1) & updated firmware to the latest IT.

My next step is to setup ZFS replication from my main freenas box to this VM. Thats pretty much all this new freenas box will be doing.

Two questions:

1: If I were to remove all 5 drives from this VM & put them into a physical freenas desktop, do a new freenas installation & add these as an existing Zraid to the new freenas, would/should it just 'work' - similar to transferring an existing freenas installation to new hardware?

2: If I were to lose the Freenas installation VM disk & recreate it, should Freenas find the existing disks in the new VM installation (similar question to #1).

Thanks,
Rich

 

[joeschmuck]

1: If I were to remove all 5 drives from this VM & put them into a physical freenas desktop, do a new freenas installation & add these as an existing Zraid to the new freenas, would/should it just 'work' - similar to transferring an existing freenas installation to new hardware?

It will work just fine, you just need to Auto-Import the pool.

2: If I were to lose the Freenas installation VM disk & recreate it, should Freenas find the existing disks in the new VM installation (similar question to #1).

Same answer as the first question.

 

[Dice]

yeah I've tried migrating in and out from ESXi back to barebone freenas a couple of times, swapping machines too.
It works amazingly well.

 

[joeschmuck]

This was actually one of my requirements when building my server, having the flexibility with the data drives for when the system takes a dive. I've even taken my ESXi system and booted it from FreeNAS and it all worked great.

 

[MisterIce]

Hey guys,

I'm looking into this all and so far it seems pretty straight forward, but now I'm wondering ... Obviously the IPMITool within FreeNAS would be unable to function, so how do you get your reading and/or control your fans?

I've got this running on a test system at the moment. So far I've been able to install the IPMITool on the ESXi host and give the speed a static value but haven't been able to have FreeNAS regulate between HDD temps and ESXi fan speed.

How I look at it there are 3 ways:
- Static value which is high enough to keep HDD's under 40 degrees
- After market controller
- A script with some combination of IPMITool and the 'Invoke-VMScript' cmdlet

So to anyone who has ESXi running, how do you handle this?

Grtz,

 

[joeschmuck]

My fans are all controlled by the motherboard. I don't have any fancy scripts to control the fans. The IPMI tool is only used for the motherboard. Also, my fans are in a proper location to ensure my hard drives remain cool even when running at low speed (1000RPM for CPU, 1100 RPM for two air intake/hard drive fans). And I have a 140mm fan running on 7VDC putting cool air inside the case (dumping air on top of the PCI-E cards) so it runs slow as well but I have no idea the RPM it's at, likely ~700 (pulled that out my rear). All temps are good. The CPU temp is a bit high but I'm running BOINC on Ubuntu and that uses CPU power.

I'm sure this doesn't help answer your question but I just wanted you to know that I don't use a script.

 

[MisterIce]

My fans are all controlled by the motherboard. I don't have any fancy scripts to control the fans. The IPMI tool is only used for the motherboard. Also, my fans are in a proper location to ensure my hard drives remain cool even when running at low speed (1000RPM for CPU, 1100 RPM for two air intake/hard drive fans). And I have a 140mm fan running on 7VDC putting cool air inside the case (dumping air on top of the PCI-E cards) so it runs slow as well but I have no idea the RPM it's at, likely ~700 (pulled that out my rear). All temps are good. The CPU temp is a bit high but I'm running BOINC on Ubuntu and that uses CPU power.
View attachment 13908

I'm sure this doesn't help answer your question but I just wanted you to know that I don't use a script.

Thanks for your reply.

At the moment my motherboard also handles all the fans but my CPU is usually around 25-30 degrees. This means my fans will run at 400RPM (unless I put 'Fan Speed Mode' to Full) ... This made my HDD's reach 39 degrees when idle so I unplugged the HDD's from the PSU.

I'm playing around with the IPMITool now on the ESXi host and if my test results are ok then I'll put the HDD's back online.

Kind of funny (and stupid), this whole setting up ESXi + FreeNAS + other VM's and passthrough/config all the hardware was the easy part and the difficult part is handle my HDD temps lol

 

[Black Ninja]

This made my HDD's reach 39 degrees when idle so I unplugged the HDD's from the PSU.

If your hdd temp is 39 , why would you think you have to do anything about the fan speed ? While 40 is preferable number, running under 50 is perfectly fine for your hdds.
I am sure if you look carefully you'll find much more important points of failure to worry about than you hdd reaching 39. I assume the goal is to prolong longevity and reliability of your system not just get the hdd at the temp you have your mind set on , right ?
Check the manufacturer specs and google study about the hdd temps.

 

[MisterIce]

If your hdd temp is 39 , why would you think you have to do anything about the fan speed ? While 40 is preferable number, running under 50 is perfectly fine for your hdds.
I am sure if you look carefully you'll find much more important points of failure to worry about than you hdd reaching 39. I assume the goal is to prolong longevity and reliability of your system not just get the hdd at the temp you have your mind set on , right ?
Check the manufacturer specs and google study about the hdd temps.

I know (WD40EFRX is 65 degrees), but currently the fans only do 400RPM and that's hardly blowing anything at the HDD's. And just because they are allowed to reach 65 degrees doesn't mean I want them to get that high. The longest lifespan you can get will still be by having the drives around 40 degrees. If that means I have to spend some more time investing in proper cooling and it will extend the lifespan a little, I'd rather keep that money in my pocket lol.

Some drives are also new, so still have to do the badblocks and want to have the cooling down before starting it.

 

[joeschmuck]

400 RPM is rather slow. Not sure but if you have a volt meter, maybe you could check the voltage level and if it's under 7VDC then you could just make a wiring change if you're up to the task.

The change would be to take a Molex 4 pin to 3 pin fan header and then you take out one of the black wires and place electrical tape on it, move the red wire to where the black wire was, and now you have 7VDC across the 3 pin fan header. This will typically give you a reasonable medium speed. Without a tach you won't know but you will be able to compare the air flow so you will know if more was achieved.

 

[Black Ninja]

I know (WD40EFRX is 65 degrees), but currently the fans only do 400RPM and that's hardly blowing anything at the HDD's. And just because they are allowed to reach 65 degrees doesn't mean I want them to get that high. The longest lifespan you can get will still be by having the drives around 40 degrees. If that means I have to spend some more time investing in proper cooling and it will extend the lifespan a little, I'd rather keep that money in my pocket lol.

Some drives are also new, so still have to do the badblocks and want to have the cooling down before starting it.

I agree. I would worry for 65. What I mean was if you drives ide at 39 and then under load get to 45 you are perfectly fine.

I assume this is not a server chassis but consumer desktop case ? If this is the case often take an engineer and dremel to make this work and cool properly.I would recommend in 24/7 service where reliability is a must to get a serve chassis, even used from ebay , if your particular setup allows it. Consumer cases has no regard about the cooling or 24/7 service.


P.S. I did purchase a small brand new dell desktop for my wife and the WD hdd 7200 rpm inside was above 60 after 30min of service. This was by design. I had to swap the disk for cooler running ssd and speed up the fans still with software (unfortunately)to make it work the way I would like it. If haven't touch it it would still work for a while before it stop, could be even a year or less. Isn't this something manufacturer would love to happen to unsuspected consumers, being on a market next year for PC again ?;)
I often wonder was it really bad design or on purpose.

 

[Black Ninja]

Without a tach

Who would still use those anymore ?(meaning 2 wire fan), even 3 is not good idea.

 

[MisterIce]

I have the ability to just put it on 800RPM (example) and the HDD's will be happy, am just looking for a way to make it beautiful lol