Please critique my first FreeNAS server build and performance - thanks to all the help here!

[traderjay]

After spending quite a bit of time reading the threads and contribution by fellow members, I finally decided to ditch my 10+ year old homebrew NAS running Ubuntu and upgrade to FreeNAS. Below are my server specs:

FreeNAS Server

• CPU: Intel XEON E3 1265L V3
• Motherboard: Supermicro X10SAE
• RAM: 16 GB DDR3 with ECC
• Storage Pool 1: 6 X 3TB HGST 7K4000 Ultrastar in RAIDZ2
• Storage Pool 2 Connected to 9212-4i4e : 3 X 3TB Seagate Ultrastar in RAIDZ1

The first thing I did is to run some benchmarks to gauge the performance:

Storage Pool 1 performance: 6 X 3TB HGST 7K4000 Ultrastar in RAIDZ2

Code:

 Auto Mode
        File size set to 25165824 KB
        Record Size 4096 KB
        Command line used: iozone -a -s 24g -r 4096
        Output is in Kbytes/sec
        Time Resolution = 0.000001 seconds.
        Processor cache size set to 1024 Kbytes.
        Processor cache line size set to 32 bytes.
        File stride size set to 17 * record size.
                                                            random  random    bkwd   record   stride
              KB  reclen   write rewrite    read    reread    read   write    read  rewrite     read   fwrite frewrite   fread  freread
        25165824    4096  606096  601095   673406   561255  217897  602713  247036  7169060   377901   603011   570461  651844   650553

Storage Pool 2 performance: 3 X 3TB HGST 7K4000 Ultrastar in RAIDZ1

Code:

  Auto Mode
  File size set to 25165824 KB
  Record Size 4096 KB
  Command line used: iozone -a -s 24g -r 4096
  Output is in Kbytes/sec
  Time Resolution = 0.000001 seconds.
  Processor cache size set to 1024 Kbytes.
  Processor cache line size set to 32 bytes.
  File stride size set to 17 * record size.
  random  random  bkwd  record  stride
  KB  reclen  write rewrite  read  reread  read  write  read  rewrite  read  fwrite frewrite  fread  freread
  25165824  4096  247372  245224  279534  279717  129286  215289  190490  9749985  279126  225238  228789  239818  246827

From Windows share, I am able to max out my gigabit connection in both read and write! Without this forum, my first foray into ZFS and FreeNAS wouldn't have been so smooth! By the way guys, what command should I run in shell that list out my current config so I can copy paste it here for your critique?

 

[DrKK]

Where did you find that CPU? Was it a hand-me-down? I can't seem to find it for sale anywhere new retail.

 

[traderjay]

Where did you find that CPU? Was it a hand-me-down? I can't seem to find it for sale anywhere new retail.

I found this little gem on ebay and immediately bought it from a vendor that just listed a whole bunch of decommissioned Dell equipment. I am sure it will provide me years of reliable and FAST service in the freenas box. This particular model has a 45W power envelope with 8MB L2 cache which makes it into a i7-class CPU. Its never made available for retail sale by Intel and is meant specifically for OEMs.

 

[DrKK]

I found this little gem on ebay and immediately bought it from a vendor that just listed a whole bunch of decommissioned Dell equipment. I am sure it will provide me years of reliable and FAST service in the freenas box. This particular model has a 45W power envelope with 8MB L2 cache which makes it into a i7-class CPU. Its never made available for retail sale by Intel and is meant specifically for OEMs.

I like it. Odd choice for NAS drives, but I assume you have your reasons, and there's nothing wrong with it.

Proceed with my compliments. Let us know how it works out.

Also, based upon your description, I assume you made two actually different zpools. Is that useful to you? I mean, as opposed to just having all of these drives (as two vdevs) in the same pool?

 

[traderjay]

I like it. Odd choice for NAS drives, but I assume you have your reasons, and there's nothing wrong with it.

Proceed with my compliments. Let us know how it works out.

Also, based upon your description, I assume you made two actually different zpools. Is that useful to you? I mean, as opposed to just having all of these drives (as two vdevs) in the same pool?

I selected the hitachi drives because they are enterprise grade drives with 2 million MTBF and error rate of 1 in 10^15 - https://www.hgst.com/products/hard-drives/ultrastar-7k4000
Moreoever, I got them at an amazing price from an Israeli seller brand new for USD$110 each which is a total bargain. He accidentally sent me 3 manufacturer refurbished drives and offered me an exchange and/or purchase for $USD45 each which is too good to refuse. I ran smartest and badblock test on them without any errors. So I purchased the 3 drives and used them in a RAIDZ1 pool for non-critical data while the 6 drives are used in the RAIDZ2 pool.

Lastly, I forgot to mention that there is also a seagate 7200.12 500GB drive in the FreeNAS box mounted as ISCSI drive to my windows machine. Even that drive is performing at 110MB/sec + read/write :)