Performance Expectation

[eroji]

Hello. I am looking to possibly set up a FreeNAS server. I currently have 2 ESXi servers for my home lab both of which has LSI MegaRAID in them. Each host server has a set of 4x4TB of WD Red and HGST 7200RPM drives in them. I am trying to decide if it's worthwhile to pull all those drives out and make a single FreeNAS server out of them for 32TB of array space. Since the guest OS are running off SSD datastores on each ESXi server, the NAS would be providing tier 2 storage space. However, with my current configuration, I am getting approximately 450MB R/W performance in RAID5 for each ESXi server inside the guest environment. If I am going to go ahead with the build, I would most likely pick the follow components.

ASRock C2750D4I
32GB of DDR3 ECC
4x4TB WD Red + 4x4TB HGST 7200RPM
Intel Pro 1000 VT Quad Port NIC
UNAS 8 Bay Enclosure
Generic Pico PSU

I understand since this will be on a gigabit network that it will be limited to 100MB/s transfer speed. I will be doing LACP however. The ESXi server would connect to the FreeNAS storage pool via iSCSI, also via a quad port LACP bound NIC. My question is, how much concurrent throughput will the hardware configuration above allow me to get out of the FreeNAS server realistically?

 

[cyberjock]

You are totally gonna burn out all of your parts if you think a Pico PSU is acceptable for that.

 

[eroji]

May not be the right PSU there as I just glanced at what the case seemed to take. It will be whatever that is required of the build.

 

[eroji]

Did a little more reading and example of a build at http://pivotallabs.com/high-performing-mid-range-nas-server/, would having a HBA card better performance and scaling than the onboard SATA ports?

 

[9C1 Newbee]

As long as the HBA and onboard are compatible, No.

In other words, if your board controller is compatible with FreeNAS and you have available ports, you do not need a HBA.