Newbie - help with potential set up

[Brip]

Hi all,

I'm wanting to use FreeNAS to setup a backup fileserver for our office. So looking for advice on various questions I've got - any advice on them or where is more appropriate to post any of the questions gratefully received.

Planned setup:
Server: HP xw9300
- 2 x AMD Opteron 285 processors
- 8GB RAM
- Qlogic fibre channel adaptor direct attached to disk array

Disk array: Dot Hill r/evolution 2730 with 12 x 300GB SAS disks and two RAID controllers in the enclosure

(The above is a workstation that is not any longer used for that purpose).

Our network setup:
Dell Powerconnect 6248+6224 switches

Users: mix of Macs and Windows machines, approx 30 users.

Hardware question: Would a dedicated dual-NIC (Intel PT100/1000) help in the server? Thinking would like to connect to switch with LAG using LACP to increase throughput -that make sense?

RAID/filesystem on disk array:
Thinking would like to use ZFS to make use of the snapshot ability. However the disk array has it's own RAID controllers. It has an option for non-RAID which I assume will allow me to set up each disk as an individual volume, so the server sees the 12 disks. Is this better than using the RAID controllers to create it's own RAID (eg. RAID 50)? I know that if I do that I can't use ZFS?

In theory I'll add the server to our Active Directory. Then set up Samba shares, which is what we currently use. IS NFS a realistic option? By that I mean it needs to be straightforward for workstations to access; I've read that NFS is faster and may be better for the Macs to connect than Samba? Anyone else use this with Windows 7 Professional clients?

Any feedback/advice gratefully received!

 

[peterh]

to be honest i would advice not to use above hardware.

reasons ?
- old hardware with "strange bios"
- 12 X 300GB disks - well 4 2TB would do better and have less moving parts/less power/less trouble
- embedded raidcontroller - avaoid at all costs if zfs is used

I'd drop the dell-switch also if you need more then a single Gigport
and fair performance

A cheap noname with 6-8 sata ports and 16G mem would do better and be less troublesome to get running.
This is my personal opinopn, anyone is allowed to disagree !

 

[louisk]

If you are only using this as a file server, I would question why you are putting out $ to purchase SAS.

If you are using ZFS, why are you getting RAID controllers?

LACP might make sense, if you think that your users will be pushing an aggregate of more than 800MB/s. This will also require configuration on your switch.

If you want to have a share containing files that both apple and windows machines use, pick a single way to do it. Using NFS+CIFS, or AFP+CIFS is asking for trouble. Different mechanisms have different requirements for what valid file names are. You will end up with a mess that is difficult to debug. If you need windows and apple, just use CIFS.