BUILD Time for an upgrade

[TravisT]

So I'm long overdue for an upgrade to my NAS. I've been running it for quite some time now, and it's currently on an old MSI 870A-G54 board with an AMD Sempron 140 unlocked to a Phenom II x4 945. My drives are old, full and beginning to have bad sectors.

I also have a C2550D4I board that was in an ESXi server. The board crapped out on me, and I'm finally getting around to RMAing it. I'm debating using this board as my new freenas build.

My current thoughts:

Motherboard: C2550D4I
RAM: 32GB Crucial ECC RAM
HDs: 4TB WD Red Drives x2 (others TBD)
Case: Either Norco Mini-ITX Case or SilverStone DS380B
Controller: M1015 flashed to LSI BIOS

Primary usage is general file server as well as a iSCSI target for an ESXi box. My current configuration is 4 1TB drives in a RAID10 configuration for iSCSI and a 3-disk RAIDZ for my media/files. My goal is to improve performance while offering the maximum amount of storage for my data with 8 drives.

Questions:
1. Should I consider a SSD for log/caching? I've heard mixed review on these, and I really don't know much about the pros/cons of running them.
2. Am I overloading the RAM for my needs? I'm currently running 16GB on my setup, and from what I can tell it is utilizing all of it. If it's overkill, I could save some $ here by only loading 16GB but have no problem going higher if necessary for performance.
3. Any feedback on either case would be great if anyone has practical experience with it.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

1. You might benefit from SLOG and/or L2ARC based on your goal of delivering block storage. Note that they are separate things with different requirements. For example, the SLOG device must have power loss protection.
2. No, you probably need more RAM for block storage with SLOG and L2ARC.
3. pass

 

[nojohnny101]

Others will have chime in on #1 and #2 (EDIT thanks @Robert Trevellyan)

I feel like a broken record here, everyone is looking into the Silverstone DS380B. I used to have the case as my primary but now it serves as my backup freenas box.

Silverstone DS380B
PROS
- holds a lot of hard drives (very dense for the overall case size).
- great small form factor for all that it can pack inside
- good design (subjective)
- tools drive bays

CONS
- poor cooling for HDDs. I had 4 x 2.5" laptop drives in it and at idle with stock fans running at 1100RPM and ambient temperature in the upper 80sF, the hard drives were over 42-44C. Not good. This is easily fixed with a piece of cardboard. But to have to fix bad engineering after purchasing a case for over $100, not acceptable. You can see the fix here. After doing this mod, my temps dropped to 28-30 for all drives during idle with same ambient temperature.
- almost non-existent cable management inside the case. it can be done, but the company didn't help at all when they designed the case.
- its greatest strength (size) is also a curse as the case is incredibly difficult to work with. just not much space to put hands when trying to do things.
- poor design as far as components. example are the two fans that cool the drives (or don't as you can see) are behind the hard drive cage which means you have to remove it almost every time you do anything in the case (it's a pan).

Summary: it seems one can do better than the silverstone DS380B for big correction needed to make it even work correctly (drive cooling). I have the Node 804 which I love but it is a bit big. Maybe others can recommend alternatives.

 

[Mirfster]

Primary usage is general file server as well as a iSCSI target for an ESXi box.

• More RAM is better
  
• Would be great to

I feel like a broken record here, everyone is looking into the Silverstone DS380B. I used to have the case as my primary but now it serves as my backup freenas box.

Write a post about it already and just direct them to it... :p

P.S. Agree with Robert..

 

[TravisT]

1. You might benefit from SLOG and/or L2ARC based on your goal of delivering block storage. Note that they are separate things with different requirements. For example, the SLOG device must have power loss protection.
2. No, you probably need more RAM for block storage with SLOG and L2ARC.
3. pass

Thanks for this info. I'll look more into it if there may be a benefit. My iSCSI performs acceptably now, but I'd consider doing it still if it would benefit me. On the other hand, I may leave it alone after researching if it won't help me with my RAIDZ pool much.

So I'm long overdue for an upgrade to my NAS. I've been running it for quite some time now, and it's currently on an old MSI 870A-G54 board with an AMD Sempron 140 unlocked to a Phenom II x4 945. My drives are old, full and beginning to have bad sectors.

I also have a C2550D4I board that was in an ESXi server. The board crapped out on me, and I'm finally getting around to RMAing it. I'm debating using this board as my new freenas build.

My current thoughts:

Motherboard: C2550D4I
RAM: 32GB Crucial ECC RAM
HDs: 4TB WD Red Drives x2 (others TBD)
Case: Either Norco Mini-ITX Case or SilverStone DS380B
Controller: M1015 flashed to LSI BIOS

Primary usage is general file server as well as a iSCSI target for an ESXi box. My current configuration is 4 1TB drives in a RAID10 configuration for iSCSI and a 3-disk RAIDZ for my media/files. My goal is to improve performance while offering the maximum amount of storage for my data with 8 drives.

Questions:
1. Should I consider a SSD for log/caching? I've heard mixed review on these, and I really don't know much about the pros/cons of running them.
2. Am I overloading the RAM for my needs? I'm currently running 16GB on my setup, and from what I can tell it is utilizing all of it. If it's overkill, I could save some $ here by only loading 16GB but have no problem going higher if necessary for performance.
3. Any feedback on either case would be great if anyone has practical experience with it.

That's the main feedback I've seen on the DS380 case - thermal dynamics are poor for drive cooling. I'm glad you posted that mod in the event I go with this case. It's easy enough and gets the job done, but I do agree that after spending $100+ on a small case with no PSU, cooling should be the last thing you need to worry about.

• More RAM is better
  
• Would be great to

Write a post about it already and just direct them to it... :p

P.S. Agree with Robert..

I know that ZFS is RAM hungry, but wasn't sure where that became excessive. Looks like more RAM it is!