Reuse old ESXI server for FreeNAS (Newbie).

[IQless]

Hi.

I got my hands on a older server used for esxi relatively cheap (at least in my opinion).
What I hope you could help me with, is to see if there is any pitfalls to this setup when it comes to FreeNAS.
I know this is a "few" generations from new, but I hope it is a nice place to start my FreeNAS journey.

My initial thought is to have a fileshare, Media storage, Plex Server and a TimeMachine.
The motherboard only supports 6x SATA out of the box, so I was planing on running the OS on a 64GB Kingston HyperX Usb stick, then using the 6 sata ports for my storage (I was thinking RAIDZ2). I do have 2x Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB that I was thinking of using for the OS in a mirror, but then I have to few sata ports for storage (maybe adding a HBA later on?).

So my questions are:

1. Do any of you see any immediate pitfalls to this setup?
2. With the Buss Speed cap of 5.86 GT/s QPI, is this going to be an issue if I in the future would like to add a 10Gb/s nic? Is this going to be an issue with other part of FreeNAS?
3. Any suggestions on what I should upgrade/add first to this setup?

Hardware:

• Motherboard: X8DTL-iF http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/QPI/5500/X8DTL-iF.cfm
• CPU: 2 x Xeon E5645 @2.4GHz https://ark.intel.com/products/4876...r-E5645-12M-Cache-2_40-GHz-5_86-GTs-Intel-QPI
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12DXi4 http://noctua.at/en/nh-u12dx-i4
• Memory: 6x16GB (96GB) Samsung Registered ECC 1.35V
• NIC 1: 1x Dual Intel® 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller https://ark.intel.com/products/50494/Intel-PRO1000-PT-Dual-Port-Server-Adapter
• NIC 2: 1x Dual Intel® 82576 Gigabit Ethernet
• Storage: 5x Seagate Barracuda 2TB, 1x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB
• Case: Fractal Design XL R2 http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/define-series/define-xl-r2-black-pearl
• PSU: Fractal Design R2 650W Gold http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/power-supplies/discontinued-products/tesla-r2-650w
• *Optional: SSD: 2x Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB

 

[Chris Moore]

Hi.

I got my hands on a older server used for esxi relatively cheap (at least in my opinion).
What I hope you could help me with, is to see if there is any pitfalls to this setup when it comes to FreeNas.
I know this is a "few" generations from new, but I hope it is a nice place to start my FreeNas journey.

My initial thought is to have a fileshare, Media storage, Plex Server and a TimeMachine.
The motherboard only supports 6x SATA out of the box, so I was planing on running the OS on a 64GB Kingston HyperX Usb stick, then using the 6 sata ports for my storage (I was thinking RAIDZ2). I do have 2x Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB that I was thinking of using for the OS in a mirror, but then I have to few sata ports for storage (maybe adding a HBA later on?).

So my questions are:

1. Do any of you see any immediate pitfalls to this setup?
2. With the Buss Speed cap of 5.86 GT/s QPI, is this going to be an issue if I in the future would like to add a 10Gb/s nic? Is this going to be an issue with other part of FreeNas?
3. Any suggestions on what I should upgrade/add first to this setup?

Hardware:

• Motherboard: X8DTL-iF http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/QPI/5500/X8DTL-iF.cfm
• CPU: 2 x Xeon E5645 @2.4GHz https://ark.intel.com/products/4876...r-E5645-12M-Cache-2_40-GHz-5_86-GTs-Intel-QPI
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12DXi4 http://noctua.at/en/nh-u12dx-i4
• Memory: 6x16GB (96GB) Samsung Registered ECC 1.35V
• NIC 1: 1x Dual Intel[emoji768] 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller https://ark.intel.com/products/50494/Intel-PRO1000-PT-Dual-Port-Server-Adapter
• NIC 2: 1x Dual Intel[emoji768] 82576 Gigabit Ethernet
• Storage: 5x Seagate Barracuda 2TB, 1x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB
• Case: Fractal Design XL R2 http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/define-series/define-xl-r2-black-pearl
• PSU: Fractal Design R2 650W Gold http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/power-supplies/discontinued-products/tesla-r2-650w
• *Optional: SSD: 2x Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB

You can pickup a good used SAS HBA on eBay for about $55. You would be better off using the HBA for the storage and the SATA for the two SSDs in the boot pool. Just be sure to set the boot order to boot from either of the SSDs.
You can move the system dataset to the boot pool also.
Your limit on the 10GB network will be the transfer rate of the drives. If I recall correctly, it's about 300 MB/s with the setup you have outlined. Nothing wrong with it, that is just a mechanical limit of the drives. More drives will be faster.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[IQless]

You can pickup a good used SAS HBA on eBay for about $55. You would be better off using the HBA for the storage and the SATA for the two SSDs in the boot pool. Just be sure to set the boot order to boot from either of the SSDs.
You can move the system dataset to the boot pool also.
Your limit on the 10GB network will be the transfer rate of the drives. If I recall correctly, it's about 300 MB/s with the setup you have outlined. Nothing wrong with it, that is just a mechanical limit of the drives. More drives will be faster.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

Hi, thanks for the quick response!
I have been looking at a LSI SAS 9211-8i on ebay, am I correct in thinking this is one of the card you don't need to flash to IT-mode? or am I misinformed?

 

[danb35]

am I correct in thinking this is one of the card you don't need to flash to IT-mode?

You may not need to flash the card to IT mode, but you'll still probably need to flash the most current firmware onto it. Flashing is generally a very straightforward process.

 

[IQless]

Just be sure to set the boot order to boot from either of the SSDs.

This might be a stupid question, but do you mean just to set boot priority?:
1st Boot Order: SSD1
2nd Boot Order: SSD2

Or is there some BIOS setting for "dual boot" (which I can't remember to have seen..)?

You may not need to flash the card to IT mode, but you'll still probably need to flash the most current firmware onto it. Flashing is generally a very straightforward process.

Thank you for the tip, I will do this when the card eventually arrives.

 

[Chris Moore]

This might be a stupid question, but do you mean just to set boot priority?:
1st Boot Order: SSD1
2nd Boot Order: SSD2

This is what I mean. There are some failure modes where (if disk 1 fails) the firmware will get stuck and not go on to disk 2, but this will work a good percentage of the time to bypass a failed disk to let the system boot. With an SSD it is much less likely that you will have a failure to boot, so don't worry about it. The failure rate on USB drives is higher and they are impossible to monitor as to the health. With the SSD, you will be able to use smartctl to check their health periodically.