Will this HBA work with my setup?

[thetraveller333]

I lost over 500 GIG of pictures and videos not too long ago and I promised myself that it will never happen again, so in addition to bluray backups, I'm building this Raid NAS. Performance is not as important as reliability.

This is what I have so far:

Case: Antec Nine hundred, ATX Mid tower
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021

Mother board: ASUS P8Z77-V
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131820

Power Supply: Corsair Professional Series Gold AX750
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139016

RAM: 16 GB Corsair Vengeance 16 dual channel kit DDR3 1600 MHZ
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004E0ZKLQ/?tag=ozlp-20

USB 3.0 stick for OS: 8GB Patriot Supersonic Boost XT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220652

USB 3.0 external to internal 19 pin adapter cable
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812162012

Hot Swap drive cages: iStarUSA 3X5.25in to 4X3.5in SAS/SATA, model #BPN-DE340SS-Blue
http://www.directron.com/bpnde340ssblue.html

Hard Drives: 8X WD 3TB Red
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236344

Notes:
I don't have an optical drive, but I can add one if needed.
I would like to use RAID-Z2 for greater reliability.
I bought 9 drives, at two different times and from two different vendors; 8 for the NAS and 1 for when one of the 8 fails.

Questions:
1. One of the missing pieces to the puzzle is an HBA. I would like to take advantage of the PCIE 3.0 on the mother board and the only HBA I found that is compatible with PCIE 3.0 is the LSI SAS 9207-8i. (http://www.provantage.com/lsi-logic-lsi00301~7LSIG0N3.htm?source=googleps) What do you think of this card for my setup? I read that FreeNAS works better if it has direct control of the drives, so going through a hardware raid card doesn't make sense.
2. Is it better to use a USB stick or an SSD for the OS? (I have a 64 GB Crucial SSD that I can use)
3. I have room for 4 more drives in the case. Could I add another 4 drives later or is it better to add them now, together with another HBA? (I have a lot of pictures)

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your help

 

[cyberjock]

Honestly, for the size of your array PCIe 2.0 will be PLENTY fast. You're bottleneck will be the hard drives. Think about this.. 8 drivesx100MB/sec is 800MB/sec. A typical 8x PCIe 1.0 slot can 2GB/sec. A PCIe 2.0 slot can do 500MB/sec per lane, for 4GB/sec. Your bottleneck will be definitely be your Gb NICs. Even if you have 4 of them at full capacity that's only 500MB/sec.

Focus MUCH less on the PCIe and MUCH more on what is compatible and works best. It looks like you've done a good job of doing your homework, just find a good card. Alot of people use an IBM card(I forget the model) but i'm sure you can find it with a little searching. Forum user "Survive" has a GREAT controller guide. I'm not at home otherwise I'd try to find it for you. The card is 8 ports and is less than $100 if you look around.

USB is the preferred method for FreeNAS. You can't use the stick for anything else, and USB sticks are SO cheap. Despite your concern with them wearing out, they should give you years of use. I use corsair 4GB and 8GB sticks and they've been flawless for 9 months in both machines. Your choice is probably fine. Just don't buy a no-name brand :)

Read my guide(link in my sig). It will explain how to add more storage space later and the limitations of doing so. You really are better off building the system exactly how you will want it for as long as feasible. Upgrading is logistically limited(and expensive). The actual process of upgrading is VERY simple. The name of the game is to overbuild your FreeNAS server now so you can put off doing upgrades as long as possible. The upgrades require replacement of all of the hard drives in a vdev, choosing to use mirrors of vdevs, etc.

 

[survive]

Hi thetraveller333,

The card you want is the IBM M1015. It's an LSI 2008 SAS HBA, plenty fast & about as supported as you can get. Figure you can get one off ebay for around $100.

Here's the link to the list of controllers:

http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=10

It's a bit dated, but the world of SAS HBA's doesn't exactly move all that fast.

If you get one you will need 2 SFF-8087-to-SATA cables....you can get them at Monoprice for less than 10 bucks each.

A couple of thoughts:

If you are going to do 8 drives that PSU is total overkill. with any luck your new filer will be spending most of it's time consuming ~100 watts of power, well out of that unit's "sweet spot" for efficiency.

Likewise, if you are only going to do 8 drives, why not get a proper 8 drive case? The Fractal Design R4 is a particular favorite.

USB3 might not be the best idea....once you get the system up and going if you have trouble booting move the key to a non-USB3 port.

-Will

 

[louisk]

One of the reasons I decided on a collection of mirrors in ZFS was the simple upgrade path. When I upgrade, I can do it in increments of 2disks at a time, even though my "array" is 4 mirrors.

 

[thetraveller333]

Hi thetraveller333,

The card you want is the IBM M1015. It's an LSI 2008 SAS HBA, plenty fast & about as supported as you can get. Figure you can get one off ebay for around $100.

Here's the link to the list of controllers:

http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=10

It's a bit dated, but the world of SAS HBA's doesn't exactly move all that fast.

If you get one you will need 2 SFF-8087-to-SATA cables....you can get them at Monoprice for less than 10 bucks each.

A couple of thoughts:

If you are going to do 8 drives that PSU is total overkill. with any luck your new filer will be spending most of it's time consuming ~100 watts of power, well out of that unit's "sweet spot" for efficiency.

Likewise, if you are only going to do 8 drives, why not get a proper 8 drive case? The Fractal Design R4 is a particular favorite.

USB3 might not be the best idea....once you get the system up and going if you have trouble booting move the key to a non-USB3 port.

-Will

Great info Survive. The HBA article is excellent. Thanks for your help.

I forgot to mention that I'm running an I7 processor.

What do you think about this card? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118142. Will it work as well as the IBM M1015 or is it better to get two IBM M1015's.
I'm going to add 4 more drives now instead of later, so I won't have to worry about expansion for a while. I'll need the extra ports.

In understand the PSU is overkill, but I was looking for reliaility and the reviews were praising this unit. I'm not as concerned about power consumption.

The 8 bays in the Fractal Design R4 case are all internal. The Antec Nine Hundred has a maximum of 9 external 5.25" bays and with the 3X4 hot swap drive bays, I can use up to 12 drives, all accessable from the front. Each 3X4 drive bay comes with its own fan, so I'm not loosing much by removing the 2 fans that the case comes with.

Thanks for the tip about the USB 3.0. I'll move the OS stick to USB 2.0

 

[thetraveller333]

Thanks for the feedback. The Powerpoint presentation was great. There is much I have to learn about FreeNas, but your presentation was a great overview.

Other than going to fiber for the NIC, is there anything I can do to increase the throughput?

I'm going to take your advice and expand to 12 drives now rather than later and I'm looking at this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118142, in addition to the IBM M1015 that Survive recommended. I think I will set up a Z Pool with two VDevs of 6 drives each, running both VDevs in Raid-Z2. This should give me 24 Tb of usable space. What do you think?

 

[thetraveller333]

Honestly, for the size of your array PCIe 2.0 will be PLENTY fast. You're bottleneck will be the hard drives. Think about this.. 8 drivesx100MB/sec is 800MB/sec. A typical 8x PCIe 1.0 slot can 2GB/sec. A PCIe 2.0 slot can do 500MB/sec per lane, for 4GB/sec. Your bottleneck will be definitely be your Gb NICs. Even if you have 4 of them at full capacity that's only 500MB/sec.

Focus MUCH less on the PCIe and MUCH more on what is compatible and works best. It looks like you've done a good job of doing your homework, just find a good card. Alot of people use an IBM card(I forget the model) but i'm sure you can find it with a little searching. Forum user "Survive" has a GREAT controller guide. I'm not at home otherwise I'd try to find it for you. The card is 8 ports and is less than $100 if you look around.

USB is the preferred method for FreeNAS. You can't use the stick for anything else, and USB sticks are SO cheap. Despite your concern with them wearing out, they should give you years of use. I use corsair 4GB and 8GB sticks and they've been flawless for 9 months in both machines. Your choice is probably fine. Just don't buy a no-name brand :)

Read my guide(link in my sig). It will explain how to add more storage space later and the limitations of doing so. You really are better off building the system exactly how you will want it for as long as feasible. Upgrading is logistically limited(and expensive). The actual process of upgrading is VERY simple. The name of the game is to overbuild your FreeNAS server now so you can put off doing upgrades as long as possible. The upgrades require replacement of all of the hard drives in a vdev, choosing to use mirrors of vdevs, etc.

Are either of the two options bellow possible, using 12 - 3TB drives on one LSI 9201 16i HBA?

Option A: 2 Zpools with 1 VDEV each and mirror the 2 Zpools. (total avail. = 12 TB)
Zpool #1 = 1 VDEV of 6 drives in RAID-Z2
Zpool #2 = 1 VDEV of 6 drives in RAID-Z2
Zpool #1 and Zpool #2 are mirrored

Option B: 1 Zpool with 2 VDEV and mirror the 2 VDEVs. (total avail. = 12 TB)
Zpool #1 = VDEV1 of 6 drives in RAID-Z2 and VDEV2 of 6 drives in RAID-Z2, with the 2 VDEVs mirrored.

 

[nexlevel]

Are either of the two options bellow possible, using 12 - 3TB drives on one LSI 9201 16i HBA?

Option A: 2 Zpools with 1 VDEV each and mirror the 2 Zpools. (total avail. = 12 TB)
Zpool #1 = 1 VDEV of 6 drives in RAID-Z2
Zpool #2 = 1 VDEV of 6 drives in RAID-Z2
Zpool #1 and Zpool #2 are mirrored

Option B: 1 Zpool with 2 VDEV and mirror the 2 VDEVs. (total avail. = 12 TB)
Zpool #1 = VDEV1 of 6 drives in RAID-Z2 and VDEV2 of 6 drives in RAID-Z2, with the 2 VDEVs mirrored.

Which one of these two options provides the best performance?

 

[Ericloewe]

Which one of these two options provides the best performance?

Holy mother of necro. Try not to dig up ancient threads that are mostly unrelated to your question.

Zpool #1 and Zpool #2 are mirrored

Pools cannot be "mirrored".

More vdevs == more performance.