My Dream System (I think)

[joeschmuck]

While it's nice to tinker around with things like the fan speed but if you have a good option while maintaining low noise levels when the drives are active, that is what I'd choose. Trying to use scripts in FreeNAS that is on an ESXi machine is just a bit much to possibly have fail. Keep it simple is the best way.

 

[Black Ninja]

While it's nice to tinker around with things like the fan speed but if you have a good option while maintaining low noise levels when the drives are active, that is what I'd choose. Trying to use scripts in FreeNAS that is on an ESXi machine is just a bit much to possibly have fail. Keep it simple is the best way.

You have said it Joe.

 

[Black Ninja]

How is your dream system going by the way ? Mostly the ESXI part ?

 

[joeschmuck]

It's running perfectly fine. I've been doing some playing around with it and trying to learn more about how ESXi can be configured. I recently purchased a new WiFi Access Point which has multiple VLAN tagging and of course SSIDs to go along with that. This means I'm now trying to learn how to implement VLAN tagging into the ESXi box and integrate it into Sophos. I'm not in a hurry and think it will take me about a month to get it working correctly. The month is just because I'm very busy at work and when I get home, the computer is the last place I want to be. I could take the easy way out and just buy a managed switch, and I may do that anyway since I want a PoE connection for the AP, but I'm just getting started with this so I'm not sure what I'll do. Dang, I sure do ramble on.

There is only one problem with the ESXi box, which I'm pretty certain that I've mentioned before. When I reboot the computer, the system will not recognize the PERC Raid card properly and will not try to boot from it. If I however power the machine off and then turn it on, it works perfectly. So this little problem does irritate me some but it's not a deal breaker. I am considering replacing the PERC card with something else, but since I'm not really ready to work on this aspect right now, I'll put it off until I feel like working on it. Not sure what card I'll use to replace it either but I'd like to retain a true mirror for the ESXi boot drives but if a new card costs too much, I'll drop back to a single SSD as the boot device. I am not making automatic backups of the configuration and the VMs so recovery "should" be somewhat painless. I do need to test out the recovery process too just to ensure that I can make it work.

Power consumption was 58kW for Aug for the ESXi box and Sept is looking like 57kW. So power consumption isn't bad at all considering I'm running Ubuntu and BOINC (number crunching) 24/7. I'm going to run a test and shut down Ubuntu for a full month and see what the power consumption looks like.

 

[Black Ninja]

The month is just because I'm very busy at work and when I get home, the computer is the last place I want to be.

It's funny I could relate to that with the exception that when I get home the computer is the first place I want to be, but is the last place I could actually be.
You should get manage switch anyways if you use the word VLAN in a first place.

I am considering replacing the PERC card with something else

I think is time, no doubt about it. It's very easy what you should get: LSI 927x or LSI 926x. It is really simple choice it just a matter of budget. You can get LSI 926x-8i with battery for around $100 or even less (ebay) or the other one for much more. Either way you'll like it saying hello the the cache and write back speeds. I just order my boot ssds which will go in Raid1 mirror.

Power consumption was 58kW for Aug for the ESXi box and Sept is looking like 57kW.

You that unless you give watts per hour, this numbers don't mean much - could be a lot or less depending on the exact hours it has been accumulated for.
C'mon Joe you know better

 

[joeschmuck]

You that unless you give watts per hour, this numbers don't mean much - could be a lot or less depending on the exact hours it has been accumulated for.
C'mon Joe you know better:)

My dear friend, C'mon, simple math. 58kW / 31 days (Aug) / 24 hours = 77.95 watts per hour average. I gave the value for the entire month because normal power draw fluctuates quite a bit from moment to moment and when doing other work on the system it was likely to use more power. So September came out to 57.19 kW = 57.19 / 30 / 24 = 79.43 watts per hour average. I know that in August I was doing a lot of VM work, setting up a few Windoze VMs and those ran for a while. So for this month I will try to minimize my affects on the system just to see the average power draw.

But for my idle current with FreeNAS and two instances of Sophos running, and minimal internet traffic, I'm pulling ~67 watts. Keep in mind that I turned off my Ubuntu VM which was sucking power down, looks like 10 to 11 watts.

It's very easy what you should get: LSI 927x or LSI 926x.

I will look into these. If you have a specific recommendation, I'm all ears.

You should get manage switch anyways if you use the word VLAN in a first place.

I agree and have been looking but I want to ensure the switch has the capabilities I desire. I have no plans to rewire my entire house with new switches, that would be 4 switches (one 8 port and three 5 port). I need to read a few user manuals. At the absolute minimum I want to take a tagged VLAN and have it service LAN net 192.168.2.x while the untagged services 192.168.1.x. That is the bare minimum. I know ESXi can handle VLAN connections and I could just add another Ethernet port and plug the AP into it and then let ESXi route the VLANs. But since I still want PoE to power up the AP, a managed switch comes into the equation.

 

[Black Ninja]

58kW / 31 days (Aug) / 24 hours = 77.95 watts per hour average. I gave the value for the entire month because normal power draw fluctuates quite a bit from moment to moment and when doing other work on the system it was likely to use more power.

Well when you speak in absolute terms is easy to do the math like you just did, but people use the word month loosely I didn't know you mean exactly 744 hours what will be for Aug. Anyways what matters is that your power consumption is really great, especially when you consider the fact that you 6xWD are the one that take 24-30W from those 79W for the whole system , make it really great.

I will look into these. If you have a specific recommendation, I'm all ears.

It seems like they are a lot of choices in the begging of my research, but they are really not that many:

Picking up the brand LSI(Avago) is like picking up Intel for CPU , so It's no brainer.
Then the model - Last model is LSI 936X that is probably not what you want to get, not just it's pricey but , it will take SAS3 SSD's to really take advantage of anything more this card has to offer. On the other end, don't make sense to go older than LSI 926X, because - price and capabilities.
So this leaves in the middle only 2 options LSI 927X (PCIe 3.0, Dual 800 Mhz CPU, 1GB Ram and can use battery or super cap) or LSI 926X (PCIe 2.0, Single 800 Mhz Cpu, 512 RAM and use battery pack)
They are both great options depends how much you want to spend, and I have both of them.

One thing to keep in mind if you don't know the last number where X is like in LSI 926X could be 1 or 0. It's the same card but if it's 1 ports are on the back of the card , while if it's 0 they are on the side. For me this is a dealbreaker cause I use chassis and can only take the model with ports on the back like LSI9261 , but if it don't matter to you , then you'll have more options the get whatever you can find cheaper. And for some reason the options for "0" with ports on the side are much more.

I agree and have been looking but I want to ensure the switch has the capabilities I desire. I have no plans to rewire my entire house with new switches, that would be 4 switches (one 8 port and three 5 port).

I follow @greco advice and bought Dell Powerconnect 5524, actualy I got 5548 model cause I can't see getting only 24 ports , but it's the same thing otherwise. I've been very happy with it and it has 2x10Gb ports. I don't use it for VLANs, cause I did run more wires around the house in order to have less switches, but if anything changes I can manage it with GUI or CLI.

 

[joeschmuck]

Well when you speak in absolute terms is easy to do the math like you just did, but people use the word month loosely I didn't know you mean exactly 744 hours what will be for Aug.

Yea, since I have the actual power being read and tracked, and it's a true representation of how the system ran over the entire month, I thought I'd use that value. I'm sure most people will use the watts per hour value of course.

Thanks for the other advice, I didn't realize what the "0" and "1" meant on the RAID cards. I would prefer the ports on the side however in my monster case, either one will work fine. Now time to look again to see when I want to open my wallet up.

 

[Black Ninja]

Now time to look again to see when I want to open my wallet up.

Open it Joe, open it ))))

 

[joeschmuck]

Open it Joe, open it :)))))

lol

 

[droeders]

I recently purchased a new WiFi Access Point which has multiple VLAN tagging and of course SSIDs to go along with that.

I'm looking for a new AP which has VLAN tagging for each SSID. I've found the following, but am looking for other options:

http://www.tp-link.us/products/details/cat-5066_AP500.html

Can you post which AP you bought?

Thanks!

 

[danb35]

I'm looking for a new AP which has VLAN tagging for each SSID.

The Ubiquiti UniFi access points support this.

 

[droeders]

The Ubiquiti UniFi access points support this.

Thanks @danb35. I've had my eye on these for a while, as they are highly recommended in the pfSense forums.

The problem for me is the ceiling mount installation. I don't have a good way to run network cable to the spot I would want it. I see that they can be wall mounted as well (which could work for me), but I'm a bit concerned with the coverage I'll get in my multi-level house.

 

[danb35]

Mine is wall-mounted, and works fine in my two-story house. Of course, it doesn't have to be mounted anywhere; you can simply set it wherever you like, but mounting it on a wall or ceiling is a cleaner look. I was fortunate enough to buy my house under construction, so I had Cat5e run throughout, including the places I wanted to mount APs. I ran wiring for an AP upstairs, but haven't needed one there.

 

[joeschmuck]

I was fortunate enough to buy my house under construction, so I had Cat5e run throughout, including the places I wanted to mount APs.

Lucky dog. When I move back to Kings Bay, GA maybe I'll find a house under construction, get fiber internet and have all the Ethernet cables installed where I want them. My son closes on a house in a few days there and he's getting the AP I purchased. Turns out it was actually slower than my other router (now an AP) for the 5GHz band. He will make good use of it and we will need to run CAT5e cable in the attic. Thankfully his computer/gaming room will be on the second level so running the wire will be easier. But I have no plans to do this until winter time when it's cool in the attic.

 

[Dice]

I have the actual power being read and tracked, and it's a true representation of how the system ran over the entire month, I thought I'd use that value. I'm sure most people will use the watts per hour value of course.

I've missed out on how this tracking operates?

 

[Black Ninja]

I've missed out on how this tracking operates?

There are several options for this, but starting with the simple one : buy a device called "kill-a-watt" and put it in the outlet between you server and the wall.

 

[Dice]

There are several options for this, but starting with the simple one : buy a device called "kill-a-watt" and put it in the outlet between you server and the wall.

Right. I own a similar device. Yet I've not looked into if it is capable of recording usage over longer periods.

I had hoped this was some dope UPS feature - that I had not caught up on in the thread yet.

 

[Black Ninja]

Well ups can monitor the total usage if we are talking about smart UPS here , but it's not really usefully for that.

Other option is when you have a power monitoring system in the premises. Then it will monitor and log each circuit along with the total power with graphs charts, etc. Can show you live draw, it's very cool actually, but it's little bit more complicated to setup.

 

[joeschmuck]

Here is a screen shot of how I track the power usage on my networking system. The only reason I purchased this mFi was because I could remotely turn power on and off to an outlet, the measurements are a bonus. I haven;t changed the labels yet but the FreeNAS is actually my ESXi server which runs FreeNAS and Sophos (2 instances) and Ubuntu, etc... I have turned off Ubuntu and tried to mitigate any changes to ESXi, meaning running any additional VMs, just to see what the power difference is having Ubuntu off for the entire month. I run BOINC on Ubuntu.