X10SL7-F mobo with WD Red 4TB drives

[ViktorLi]

Hello,

I am in a stage of building my first server for home use purpouses:
Mobo: X10SL7-F
Chip: E3-1231 V3
RAM: 2 x Crucial 8gb CT102472BD160B
HDs: 4x WD RED 4TB 3.5 (connected to SAS) / 1x SATA DOM SSD-DM032-SMCMVN1 (connected to SATA 3), 2x Kingston SSD-SA400S37 / 120G (one to the SATA 3, one to the SATA 2)

My main concern at the moment is about mobo compatibility with WD RED drives, because I do not see them listed on supermicro webpage in tested drives list. It has only WD drives up to 2 TB. Will my mobo work with the drives?

I plan to install FreeNAS as a VM on ESXI 6.5 and passthrough the onboard LSI controller with the WD drives connected, SATA DOM drive will be used to hold FreeNAS, one dedicated SSD for PLEX library on Windows 10 VM, and second SSD for some linux VMs.

Will it work that way?

Thank you in advance.
Best regards.

 

[IQless]

My main concern at the moment is about mobo compatibility with WD RED drives, because I do not see them listed on supermicro webpage in tested drives list. It has only WD drives up to 2 TB. Will my mobo work with the drives?

You seldom see compatibility issues when it comes to drives and motherboards. The WD RED drives are very well known in this forum, and I know a lot of people use them and are happy (me included).

Quick question: what kind of pool configuration are you planning on?

 

[ViktorLi]

You seldom see compatibility issues when it comes to drives and motherboards. The WD RED drives are very well known in this forum, and I know a lot of people use them and are happy (me included).

Quick question: what kind of pool configuration are you planning on?

Thank you!
I am planning to use ZFS RAIDZ-2. I want my system to serve at least 6-8 years and I am planning to add more drives in future.

 

[IQless]

Do remember that a 4x4TB drive RaidZ2 will only give you approximately 6TB of actual storage (when you factor in parity and the 20% free space limit). Adding 2 more 4TB drives will increase your actual storage to ruffly 12TB. Just something to think about.

Also remember that when you need to add drives later, you can not just add 1 more drive when the storage need increases. The norm is to add a new vdev that matches the old one.

Another thing to think about is that if you want to run FreeNAS as a VM that ONLY serves storage, you would still need a MINIMUM(this is not up for debate) of 8GB RAM for that one VM. This would leave you with only 8GB for ESXi, and the other VM's.

 

[ViktorLi]

Also remember that when you need to add drives later, you can not just add 1 more drive when the storage need increases. The norm is to add a new vdev that matches the old one.

I did not know that. Thank you.
And what about adding disks to vdev. Do I need to create a new vdev or I can just add the new disks to existing vdev?

 

[IQless]

Have a look at Useful Threads, specifically the Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC.
The more you read up on when it comes to FreeNAS and ZFS the better :)

And what about adding disks to vdev. Do I need to create a new vdev or I can just add the new disks to existing vdev?

At the moment you can not add a disk to an existing vdev. You can add another vdev to a pool, to extend the pool. This is explained in detail in the slideshow I pointed out above.

 

[ViktorLi]

Have a look at Useful Threads, specifically the Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC.
The more you read up on when it comes to FreeNAS and ZFS the better :)


At the moment you can not add a disk to an existing vdev. You can add another vdev to a pool, to extend the pool. This is explained in detail in the slideshow I pointed out above.

Thank you very much!
There is something with the slideshow link.

 

[IQless]

Sorry, something went wrong there :P
https://www.ixsystems.com/community...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

 

[Ericloewe]

You might want to take a look at the new guide as well: https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/introduction-to-zfs.111/