My FreeNAS Build with Supermicro A1SAi-2750F and Ablecom CS-M50 Case

[William Katsak]

I recently got done with my new FreeNAS build for home. I gained a lot of valuable insight and hints on this forum, so I wanted to show off my results!

Specs:
Motherboard: Supermicro A1SAi-2750F
Memory: 2 x Kingston KVR16LSE11/8KF (16 GB ECC total)
HDDs: 4 x WD Red 4 TB
SLOG/ZIL: Crucial M550 256GB (partitioned to 8GB for wear leveling)
Boot Device: Innodisk SATADOM-MV 3ME (16 GB SATA3)
Case: Ablecom CS-M50 Mini-ITX with 4x Hot-Swap Bays

I am running RAID-Z2 encrypted, and am slowly getting all my data transferred and plugins set up.

Photos:
http://imgur.com/a/HOhmk

If anyone has any questions, let me know!

 

[Pharfar]

I really love Avotons I did consider a case like yours for my new build (the fractal node 804) but the lack of cooling scared me away.

Happy nas'ing to you

 

[William Katsak]

I really love Avotons :) I did consider a case like yours for my new build (the fractal node 804) but the lack of cooling scared me away.

My temperatures seem to be great so far *cross fingers*. I figured that this case would be good because it is the exact same one as used on the FreeNAS Mini, with the same CPU (different board though).

 

[enemy85]

Does the ZIL make sense with just 4x4tb hdd and 16gb of ram? Somewhere here on the forum i read that it's suggested not to use it because it doesn't add any benefit

 

[Pharfar]

Building a FreeNas system is a fragmented religion. But I do not think your beliefs are false :) Enjoy your new NAS and listen to great music.

 

[William Katsak]

Does the ZIL make sense with just 4x4tb hdd and 16gb of ram? Somewhere here on the forum i read that it's suggested not to use it because it doesn't add any benefit

I didn't approach it scientifically. I use a lot of NFS, and noticed that during big copies, a lot of sync writes were happening (and seemed to be the bottleneck) With the ZIL, the rate of completing sync writes went up dramatically (from zilstat), so I imagine it helping. With the IOPS of this SSD, it certainly shouldn't be hurting.

 

[John Doe]

What is your power consumption? Please measure idle/vs full load thanks.

 

[jgreco]

Building a FreeNas system is a fragmented religion. But I do not think your beliefs are false :)

It is easy to forget with all the talk of the wrong ways to do things around here, there are actually lots of viable options to do it the right way, and no one way is going to be right for every user.

 

[jgreco]

Does the ZIL make sense with just 4x4tb hdd and 16gb of ram? Somewhere here on the forum i read that it's suggested not to use it because it doesn't add any benefit

Whether or not a SLOG device helps you out depends on the workload, and does not really have ANYTHING to do with the amount of RAM or the number of hard drives. If you have lots of sync writes and it is bumming you out, then making the ZIL faster (because remember you always have a ZIL, it is just by default part of the pool vdevs) by pulling it off the pool vdevs and putting it on something faster has some attractiveness.

It is a pointless waste of money if it isn't helping you. It probably won't HURT you to have a SLOG device, except for that budgetary depletion, because a good SLOG device tends to be expensive. But if you need it ... it's great.

 

[cyberjock]

It is a pointless waste of money if it isn't helping you. It probably won't HURT you to have a SLOG device, except for that budgetary depletion, because a good SLOG device tends to be expensive. But if you need it ... it's great.

Actually, there are some SSDs that can be worse than not doing an SLOG. ;)

 

[jgreco]

Actually, there are some SSDs that can be worse than not doing an SLOG. ;)

Yeah, but that's not what we were talking about. I even said "a good SLOG device."

I wouldn't suggest trying to use a USB FDD for a SLOG device either.

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah, but that's not what we were talking about. I even said "a good SLOG device."

I wouldn't suggest trying to use a USB FDD for a SLOG device either.

Biznatch! 3.5" floppy or GTFO! ;)

 

[jgreco]

3.5"? You kids with your newfangled not-floppy floppies.

 

[Ericloewe]

3.5"? You kids with your newfangled not-floppy floppies.

You mean there's such a thing as a 5.25" USB floppy drive?

 

[jgreco]

We should shoot for an 8".

 

[anodos]

We should shoot for an 8".

I think minimum disk size under ZFS is something like 64MB. This means that you should use a zip-drive ZIL rather than a floppy drive.

 

[Ericloewe]

I think minimum disk size under ZFS is something like 64MB. This means that you should use a zip-drive ZIL rather than a floppy drive.

What's the point of using a zip drive if RAM content has a greater chance of surviving long enough to be useful as a ZIL, even without power, than the contents of a zip floppy?

 

[ian351c]

Threadjack status: COMPLETE

:p

 

[Ericloewe]

Threadjack status: COMPLETE

:p

You'll find that happens a lot.

At least we tend to stay away from vi vs emacs or bashing this and that shell (pun very much intended).

 

[Z300M]

I think minimum disk size under ZFS is something like 64MB. This means that you should use a zip-drive ZIL rather than a floppy drive.

Syquest! Syquest!