Supermicro 32GB SuperDOM SATA-III with X11SSM-F

[vikozo6]

Hello
would this work to use 2 x SuperDOM as "Raid" for Boot device on a X11SSM-F Board?
The SuperDOM would hold 32GB RAM, this should be enough?!

have a nice day
vinc

 

[MatthewSteinhoff]

Yes, FreeNAS can mirror the boot volume even when hosted on SuperDOM devices and, yes, 32GB is plenty.

Cheers,
Matt

 

[BigDave]

Mirroring an SSD boot device (DOM or 2.5in. form factor) is complete overkill in my opinion,
but it will work for sure.

 

[Arwen]

My FreeNAS Mini came with a 16GB DOM. Later I added a DOM from Supermicro.
It works fine, though as some say, if you have a SSD, (a DOM is a type of SSD), then
you may not need to mirror it. My take is if you want the extra reliability, go for it.

 

[wblock]

A DOM is physically small, relatively small capacity, and not all that common to source. 2.5-inch SSDs are easy to find and cheap. Both will use a SATA port, or two when using a mirror.

 

[Chris Moore]

would this work to use 2 x SuperDOM as "Raid" for Boot device on a X11SSM-F Board?

You know that FreeNAS mirrors the boot drive (if you tell it to) and that it is totally reliable. I have tested it just to be sure.

I use a pair of drives like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hitachi-HTS...744684?hash=item1eb8efd6ac:g:tg8AAOSwmLlX6V4L

I bought a lot of six of them a couple years ago and I am still using the first four with two as spares. They are plenty fast enough and if one fails, the system will stay up.
Much less expensive than any solid state option and more reliable, plus you can run drive diagnostics against them (using cron) to keep an eye on their health. I have it automated to where I get a daily e-mail report on all my drives sent to me.
There is just no need for the speed of SSD with the FreeNAS boot pool.

 

[wblock]

and more reliable, plus you can run drive diagnostics against them (using cron) to keep an eye on their health.

Statistics claim that SSDs are actually more reliable than hard drives, which matches my experience (although I did not own any of those pre-Toshiba OCZ drives). SSDs do support SMART as well. Yes, they cost more, but as an absolute amount of the total price of a NAS, it's pretty trivial.

 

[Chris Moore]

Statistics claim that SSDs are actually more reliable than hard drives, which matches my experience (although I did not own any of those pre-Toshiba OCZ drives). SSDs do support SMART as well. Yes, they cost more, but as an absolute amount of the total price of a NAS, it's pretty trivial.

Sorry, I was not specific enough. The laptop drives are more reliable than the USB stick drives that some people use. An SSD for a boot drive in FreeNAS would be reliable, just unnecessarily expensive and provide no benefit with regard to speed. Additionally, the built into the OS, utility for motioning hard drive health did not report useful information with the Kingston SSDs that I used in one of my previous my FreeNAS builds. The difference between a $100 SSD for a boot drive (that provides no additional benefit) vs a $10 laptop hard disk drive that gets the job done might sound trivial to you, that cost difference is not trivial to everyone. Many people that post in the forums are looking for the least expensive route to get the job done and I would like to offer them options. I am by no means indicating that my way is the only way. However, the laptop drive is a valid solution that will last a very long time, especially when you put it into a mirror. I have decommissioned racks full of NAS units at my work that have been in operation for a decade using laptop hard drives for their OS. They were by a company called POGO that I think is out of business at this point, but the equipment lasted.

 

[wblock]

Ah, understood. I was thinking of 120G SSDs, which are around the $40 mark now. I would not use the unknown scary-cheap brands, but lower-tier consumer SSDs like the SanDisk Plus would be fine.

 

[chris crude]

Statistics claim that SSDs are actually more reliable than hard drives, which matches my experience (although I did not own any of those pre-Toshiba OCZ drives). SSDs do support SMART as well. Yes, they cost more, but as an absolute amount of the total price of a NAS, it's pretty trivial.

I was an early adopter to SSD, i bought a 30GB OCZ when they were new and expensive.
First it was in my main windows PC, then a laptop i used for school, now i use it for boot on my FreeNas. I have had no issues but I do know of their reputation. Many of the original issues were due to TRIM not being fully implemented at the time and people treating them as if if they were a regular hard disk and running defrag sessions with them.