NextContestant - My Z440 NAS Build

[NextContestant]

Hello All, I’m new to this NAS stuff, so hoping I can learn by this process and that others can benefit to follow this same type of build using a Z440. I’m not looking for super fast transfer (at this time), but more of for stability and redundancy. An old co-work did help me out on some of the parts lists (see below), but this was about 5-6 months ago, so also welcome to corrections.

I have read most of the build posts/docs, but to be honest… it can be a bit overwhelming with the different options/sections/configs available. It's easy to read it (theory)... until you put it to practice, but hoping to make this a low cost build, utilizing when possible with hardware at hand. I do welcome any sanity checks on the below parts list (that I have now), and what I intent to get to get completed.

NAS Intent:
I would like this NAS to store all my video and photos, while also being able to store my VM’s. After doing a quick search for others using a Z440, I found this one HERE for my platform and sizing… as I already have an extra Z440 around. I would like to do 5 drive RAIDz2 using 4TB drives that would give me 10 TB of storage. This will be PLENTY of space to store my video/files and VM’s. On the office network (simple Netgear FS105 for now) will be my HP Z440 workstation (Ubuntu 18.10), Dell 5810 VM Host (Ubuntu 18.04 and would also like to add another R630 as another VM Host/server later). This is then connected (by copper) to my house wireless then out to the modem. I’m sure this is not the ideal network solution, but hoping this can ‘getr done’ for now, once I have the NAS locked in, I do plan to upgrade the office (only) to a 10G… but that’s another day/phase.

Current Hardware: (in hand)

• 1x HP Z440 E5-1650 v3 @ 3.5GHz (w/ 2x 8G sticks, will upgrade to a total of 32G later)
• 7x WD 4TB WD4000FYYZ hard-drives
  • Figured I could use 5x for the build and have 2x extra for swap (none tested yet)
  • I also have a total of 5x WD 4TB WD4001FYYG. Could these also be used for swap for above as well… these are 32MB cache, while the above (WD4000FYYZ) are 64MB cache
• 1x SAS9211-8I 8PORT Int 6GB Sata+sas Pcie 2.0
• 1x Dell 200GB SSD (LB206M) for OS (not test yet… but have more then 1)

Unknowns:
I’m not sure if I will be able to use the onboard NIC (Z440) for this part of the build… any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am also not sure how to connect the Dell SSD for the OS… can I use any of the MB ports for this. Thought about doing the USB route, but have the SSD’s so why not use them, unless I heard any objections why I shouldn’t use them….

Thanks all, to those that have got’n this far in this post. I’m sure I have missed out a few (possibly many lol) items of info, let me know if I have and I’ll include them to help clarify. I will next be posting what I have done.. and where I am currently stuck at.

 

[IQless]

• Figured I could use 5x for the build and have 2x extra for swap (none tested yet)
• I also have a total of 5x WD 4TB WD4001FYYG. Could these also be used for swap for above as well… these are 32MB cache, while the above (WD4000FYYZ) are 64MB cache

1: What do you mean with "swap"?
2: Is this going to be a VM store for a kind of hypervisor?

I am also not sure how to connect the Dell SSD for the OS… can I use any of the MB ports for this.

Yes, if this is going to be a standalone FreeNAS box, you can connect it to any SATA port on the MB.

 

[Yorick]

Looks like a solid build. Yes you can use any drive that is sized >= a failed drive as a spare. The IOPS of your raidz2 will be those of the slowest drive. For your use case, I don’t expect you to ever be limited by that at this point in time.

VMs benefit from 10G networking, but that depends on the number and type of VMs you run. Once you are at 10G, you can look at performance and decide whether it makes sense to set up a separate pool consisting of multiple mirror vdevs, or even two times raidz2 depending on how you are faring for IOPS. As you say, for another time - that’s getting into production-ish designs rather than home use. For home use on 1G, a raidz2 is just fine.

Keep in mind that you cannot extend a raidz2 after the fact. You can add another one into the same pool. The “received wisdom sweet spot” for raidz2 is 6 drives. That said, plenty of folk are running 5.

Side-note: you can increase the storage capacity of a raidz2 by replacing drives one by one with bigger ones, waiting for resilver after each one. When the last one is replaced, the raidz2 uses the full capacity of the drives.
Soon(tm), raidz(1/2/3) will be able to be extended one drive at a time. My crystal ball says 2020 time frame for that.

For your network, the built in Intel NIC will work fine. The add-on HP ones, if you have any, I have no clue about, that would depend on the chipset on there.

Lastly: Make sure that LSI runs in “IT mode” as a pure HBA. Anything RAID does not work well with ZFS. The forum has a good guide on flashing LSI to IT mode, check the resources section.

Edited to add: You can connect two of your SSDs and choose both during install, FreeNAS will create a boot mirror. It’s highly unlikely your boot device will fail, but if you’re a little paranoid and you don’t need the SSDs elsewhere, a mirrored boot drive can give some peace of mind.