I've been wanting to re-build/re-configure my setup for a while and have finally decided to do it. Part of the point of re-doing it is to setup a test lab for work (so I can mess around with server backup, and experiment), as well as have an almost infinitely expandable storage array. FreeNAS seems to be a good choice however I've never set it up in a scenario like I currently plan to (mostly I've used it in VM's and a few simple setups for friends). The other goal is to do this as cheap as possible. At present I have (or will soon have) the below hardware,
FreeNAS Box:
1x Norco RPC-4224 Case
8x 2TB WD20EARX HDD's (3 of these HDD's are currently filled with data)
4x 1TB HDD's (all full, and which I plan to retire)
4x 2GB DDR3 Kingston 1333MHz RAM
1x GA-H55-USB3
1x Core i5 750 CPU
3x M1015 (LSI SAS2008)
ESXi Server:
1x Thermaltake Armor Case
2x 1.5TB HDD's
4x 4GB DDR3 ECC RAM
1x Supermicro X9SCM-F Motherboard
1x Intel Xeon E3-1220v2
The plan is to setup the Norco as a FreeNAS box using ZFS (in RAID-Z or RAID-2Z) and attach that via iSCSI to a Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012 box running inside ESXi on the Thermaltake system. Eventually I'll upgrade the Thermaltake system to make it rack mount and have several 1TB WD Black HDD's in RAID, I also plan to run Exchange and SQL server's on the ESXi box (however that has nothing to do with the FreeNAS setup). There are going to be two physically seperate networks running, one dedicated to data and another dedicated to iSCSI. There are several problems with this setup that stop me from doing what I want, and this is where I need some input/sugestions from people more experienced with FreeNAS.
First is to do with expanding the ZFS array as I get more HDD's and how that can be acomplished when using iSCSI. At the moment (as far as I can tell) there is currently no way to expand a ZFS device extent. Meaning I will need to connect it to iSCSI using a file extent and I haven't been able to find any info on the pro's and con's of using a file extent instead of a device extent. Also there is the question of weather to create two RAID-Z arrays out of the 8x 2TB HDD's or buy another 3x 2TB HDD's and make one RAID-2Z array out of 8x 2TB HDD's. I'm hesitant to use 8x 2TB HDD's in a single array as that means in order to expand it in the future I will need to buy another lot of 8x 2TB HDD's.
The other thing is when I've filled up the Norco case I'd like to be able to keep expanding beyond that. At present my idea is to buy another Norco case, attach it via iSCSI again to the Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012 box and use Disk Management to turn both iSCSI devices into a JBOD.
FreeNAS Box:
1x Norco RPC-4224 Case
8x 2TB WD20EARX HDD's (3 of these HDD's are currently filled with data)
4x 1TB HDD's (all full, and which I plan to retire)
4x 2GB DDR3 Kingston 1333MHz RAM
1x GA-H55-USB3
1x Core i5 750 CPU
3x M1015 (LSI SAS2008)
ESXi Server:
1x Thermaltake Armor Case
2x 1.5TB HDD's
4x 4GB DDR3 ECC RAM
1x Supermicro X9SCM-F Motherboard
1x Intel Xeon E3-1220v2
The plan is to setup the Norco as a FreeNAS box using ZFS (in RAID-Z or RAID-2Z) and attach that via iSCSI to a Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012 box running inside ESXi on the Thermaltake system. Eventually I'll upgrade the Thermaltake system to make it rack mount and have several 1TB WD Black HDD's in RAID, I also plan to run Exchange and SQL server's on the ESXi box (however that has nothing to do with the FreeNAS setup). There are going to be two physically seperate networks running, one dedicated to data and another dedicated to iSCSI. There are several problems with this setup that stop me from doing what I want, and this is where I need some input/sugestions from people more experienced with FreeNAS.
First is to do with expanding the ZFS array as I get more HDD's and how that can be acomplished when using iSCSI. At the moment (as far as I can tell) there is currently no way to expand a ZFS device extent. Meaning I will need to connect it to iSCSI using a file extent and I haven't been able to find any info on the pro's and con's of using a file extent instead of a device extent. Also there is the question of weather to create two RAID-Z arrays out of the 8x 2TB HDD's or buy another 3x 2TB HDD's and make one RAID-2Z array out of 8x 2TB HDD's. I'm hesitant to use 8x 2TB HDD's in a single array as that means in order to expand it in the future I will need to buy another lot of 8x 2TB HDD's.
The other thing is when I've filled up the Norco case I'd like to be able to keep expanding beyond that. At present my idea is to buy another Norco case, attach it via iSCSI again to the Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012 box and use Disk Management to turn both iSCSI devices into a JBOD.
