A success story

[sremick]

Figured this was the best place to post since I don't need help (yet). :)

Did lots of research, reading. Set up a laptop (with hardware that'd make Cyberjock cry... although it did have 8GB RAM) just to test out FreeNAS and Plex to see if it was something I liked and that would be of value/interest to me to invest in it as a serious project. Eventually threw out my entire hardware shopping list and redid it based upon stuff I learned in this forum. End result can be found in my sig. I know I went with the less-popular ASRock instead of the house-favorite SuperMicro however it had the perfect set of hardware specs (I can use all 6 on-board SATA ports and not need an M1015).

Happy to say that as a result my first attempt has been a success. Computer booted on first try and it runs very cool and quiet. Ran a barrage of stress tests based upon many things I found in these forums and elsewhere. I even switched to using Plex in a jail instead of the plug-in for the sake of the PlexPass version and easier upgrades (I have lots of past experience managing FreeBSD anyhow so no big deal). System runs great, no performance issues yet. Turned off IDLE3 on all 6 drives. I've set up email reporting, scrub schedules per Cyberjock's recommendation, SMART notifications... trying to do everything right. Hats off to all of you with your posts and stickies which helped a lot. You get a lot of complainers and people who don't read so I figured you deserved to know that your efforts do pay off for a certain percentage of new users who perhaps tend to remain quiet because they end up not having any problems.

Things still pending:

• I'm not convinced everything I'm doing on a share/dataset level is kosher/best-practice. I worry that I'm making some horrible mistakes but hopefully nothing that can't be fixed.
  
• Eventually would like to enable some AFP datasets for Time Machine backups for 2 Macs
• Would like to set up Crashplan for off-site backup of the FreeNAS server
• Wondering if the FN9.3 upgrade upgrades the USB stick from UFS to ZFS? I know a fresh 9.3 install will make it ZFS.
• I have CPU cycles to spare, so I contemplate what other value I could set up this server to provide.

 

[Ericloewe]

Figured this was the best place to post since I don't need help (yet). :)

Did lots of research, reading. Set up a laptop (with hardware that'd make Cyberjock cry... although it did have 8GB RAM) just to test out FreeNAS and Plex to see if it was something I liked and that would be of value/interest to me to invest in it as a serious project. Eventually threw out my entire hardware shopping list and redid it based upon stuff I learned in this forum. End result can be found in my sig. I know I went with the less-popular ASRock instead of the house-favorite SuperMicro however it had the perfect set of hardware specs (I can use all 6 on-board SATA ports and not need an M1015).

Happy to say that as a result my first attempt has been a success. Computer booted on first try and it runs very cool and quiet. Ran a barrage of stress tests based upon many things I found in these forums and elsewhere. I even switched to using Plex in a jail instead of the plug-in for the sake of the PlexPass version and easier upgrades (I have lots of past experience managing FreeBSD anyhow so no big deal). System runs great, no performance issues yet. Turned off IDLE3 on all 6 drives. I've set up email reporting, scrub schedules per Cyberjock's recommendation, SMART notifications... trying to do everything right. Hats off to all of you with your posts and stickies which helped a lot. You get a lot of complainers and people who don't read so I figured you deserved to know that your efforts do pay off for a certain percentage of new users who perhaps tend to remain quiet because they end up not having any problems.

Things still pending:

• I'm not convinced everything I'm doing on a share/dataset level is kosher/best-practice. I worry that I'm making some horrible mistakes but hopefully nothing that can't be fixed.
  
• Eventually would like to enable some AFP datasets for Time Machine backups for 2 Macs
• Would like to set up Crashplan for off-site backup of the FreeNAS server
• Wondering if the FN9.3 upgrade upgrades the USB stick from UFS to ZFS? I know a fresh 9.3 install will make it ZFS.
• I have CPU cycles to spare, so I contemplate what other value I could set up this server to provide.

The GUI upgrade from 9.2 to 9.3 is the same as a clean install that preserves your config file. Some have reported it not working, but it's supposed to, so it'll probably be fixed.

 

[sremick]

The GUI upgrade from 9.2 to 9.3 is the same as a clean install that preserves your config file. Some have reported it not working, but it's supposed to, so it'll probably be fixed.

Good to know. :) Another thing I need to figure out is how jails are upgraded between FreeNAS versions... especially major ones where the underlying FreeBSD version changes. Since I'm not using the Plex plug-in.

 

[jkh]

Good to know. :) Another thing I need to figure out is how jails are upgraded between FreeNAS versions... especially major ones where the underlying FreeBSD version changes. Since I'm not using the Plex plug-in.

Jails are deliberately not touched. Once you create one, it's up to you to decide if/when you want to upgrade the bits inside of it. FreeNAS just leaves them alone on the assumption that if you are creating jails, you know what you are doing and anything it might try to do to "be helpful" might actually do more harm than good.

 

[Dewar]

Figured this was the best place to post since I don't need help (yet). :)

Did lots of research, reading. Set up a laptop (with hardware that'd make Cyberjock cry... although it did have 8GB RAM) just to test out FreeNAS and Plex to see if it was something I liked and that would be of value/interest to me to invest in it as a serious project. Eventually threw out my entire hardware shopping list and redid it based upon stuff I learned in this forum. End result can be found in my sig. I know I went with the less-popular ASRock instead of the house-favorite SuperMicro however it had the perfect set of hardware specs (I can use all 6 on-board SATA ports and not need an M1015).

Happy to say that as a result my first attempt has been a success. Computer booted on first try and it runs very cool and quiet. Ran a barrage of stress tests based upon many things I found in these forums and elsewhere. I even switched to using Plex in a jail instead of the plug-in for the sake of the PlexPass version and easier upgrades (I have lots of past experience managing FreeBSD anyhow so no big deal). System runs great, no performance issues yet. Turned off IDLE3 on all 6 drives. I've set up email reporting, scrub schedules per Cyberjock's recommendation, SMART notifications... trying to do everything right. Hats off to all of you with your posts and stickies which helped a lot. You get a lot of complainers and people who don't read so I figured you deserved to know that your efforts do pay off for a certain percentage of new users who perhaps tend to remain quiet because they end up not having any problems.

Things still pending:

• I'm not convinced everything I'm doing on a share/dataset level is kosher/best-practice. I worry that I'm making some horrible mistakes but hopefully nothing that can't be fixed.
  
• Eventually would like to enable some AFP datasets for Time Machine backups for 2 Macs
• Would like to set up Crashplan for off-site backup of the FreeNAS server
• Wondering if the FN9.3 upgrade upgrades the USB stick from UFS to ZFS? I know a fresh 9.3 install will make it ZFS.
• I have CPU cycles to spare, so I contemplate what other value I could set up this server to provide.

Hello sremick,

We have the same hardware set up minus the power supply and box.. in mine I have a Corsair CX 430 PSU all in a Lian-Li PC-Q25s ... lol... and yes it's a snug fit.

I just wanted to ask about "Turned off IDLE3 on all 6 drives"... is this a smart setting within the drives ?

I only ask because I've had a hard time getting the same WD 3Tb drives working without issues/FreeNas Yellow warning light with no errors.

Also could you point me to Cyberjock, sounds like someone I also need to read... Thanks :)

 

[sremick]

I just wanted to ask about "Turned off IDLE3 on all 6 drives"... is this a smart setting within the drives ?

Yes. I used the WDIDLE3 utility off the UBCD disc to set it. It was a toss up between setting it to 300 seconds (5 mins, the max) or turning it off entirely. I figured why not turn it off since the box never moves while on, although I may switch it to 300 seconds in afterthought.

Also could you point me to Cyberjock, sounds like someone I also need to read... Thanks :)

You don't have to look far to find Cyberjock's threads. ;) He has the most posts on this forum by far, a good 10K more than 2nd place.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?members/cyberjock.22572/

 

[Dewar]

Yes. I used the WDIDLE3 utility off the UBCD disc to set it. It was a toss up between setting it to 300 seconds (5 mins, the max) or turning it off entirely. I figured why not turn it off since the box never moves while on, although I may switch it to 300 seconds in afterthought.



You don't have to look far to find Cyberjock's threads. ;) He has the most posts on this forum by far, a good 10K more than 2nd place.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?members/cyberjock.22572/

Lol... thanks... I'm sure I would've found him, but I have literally just joined the forum and had to ask..

I have just had a look at the WDIDLE3 but on WD's site and they only recommend this for these WD RE2-GP drives, not the ones we have, or is this for all drives ?

:)

 

[sremick]

I have just had a look at the WDIDLE3 but on WD's site and they only recommend this for these WD RE2-GP drives, not the ones we have, or is this for all drives ?

I saw enough other threads where people reported it working on the Reds, so I tried it on mine and it worked.

 

[cyberjock]

Posting to keep my post count above #2.

Ok, I kid.

I update my jails with this: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/keeping-the-jails-up-to-date.20062/

I highly recommend you backup the jail by doing a snapshot of the dataset before updating. Things can go wrong/bad and its nice to be able to just roll back to a snapshot. ;)

Edit: I have a guide on doing the wdidle. Check out the guides section of the forum. ;)

 

[Dewar]

I saw enough other threads where people reported it working on the Reds, so I tried it on mine and it worked.

That's very interesting, I might go ahead and try it out on one of the drives that I am having issues with then...

It's strange but I've looked at that utility for months.... I wonder if this utility is meant to prevent the issues reported with WD greens... spin up/down crashing...

:)

 

[sremick]

I update my jails with this: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/keeping-the-jails-up-to-date.20062/

Thanks. I think I either am not understanding/communicating properly though, or I'm imagining a problem that doesn't exist. :p Admittedly FreeNAS is my first experience with jails... it's not, however, my first experience with FreeBSD. I used to run it as my primary desktop for many years.

It's my understanding that there's a difference between upgrading the software within a jail and upgrading the jails/templates themselves (when a FreeNAS upgrade ups the underlying FreeBSD version). But I very well might be incorrect here. My initial intro reading to understand jails didn't get into this... my concerns stem from tidbits I've picked up in various threads here and there.

I'm already quite comfortable keeping the ports (I use ports, not packages) within the jail up-to-date and am even experienced fixing many of the gotchas (dependency issues, etc) that can make things break temporarily. From what I can tell, that's what your guide is directed at, so I think I'm already covered on that front, but thanks. :)

My concern is, when the day comes to upgrade FreeNAS from 9.2 -> 9.3 (or any other upgrade where the underlying FreeBSD version changes), how do my jails (well, single jail) and templates need to be handled? Under the assumption that all the ports running within the jail are up-to-date and just hunky dory prior to the FreeNAS upgrade. Certainly a ZFS is in-order... snapshots were one of the big selling points that won me over to ZFS and FreeNAS. :) Back in the day, when I upgraded FreeBSD, I would do a forced rebuild of all my ports. Perhaps that's all that needs to be done within my jail and then I'm good to go?

I fear this thread is taking a turn from "Introductions" to "support" so I apologize...

 

[Dewar]

Yes. I used the WDIDLE3 utility off the UBCD disc to set it. It was a toss up between setting it to 300 seconds (5 mins, the max) or turning it off entirely. I figured why not turn it off since the box never moves while on, although I may switch it to 300 seconds in afterthought.



You don't have to look far to find Cyberjock's threads. ;) He has the most posts on this forum by far, a good 10K more than 2nd place.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?members/cyberjock.22572/

Hello sremick,

Well this morning I have reset all my WD Reds to /S300.

I have done this in the hope that the very very slow write issues/errors I have been experiencing will be cured... oh and I thought you might be interested in this post I found which warned against WDIDDLE /D instead of WDIDLE /S300 which I opted for, on the WD 3TB Drives we have.

http://www.argh.io/2014/04/wary-using-wdidle3-disable-idle-timers-completely/

One curious thing I noticed with the WD drives I have (5 which are all brand new)... the ones that have the Nasware 2.0 software, were all set to WDIDLE3 /S300, or set to 300 seconds already... but the WD drives that had the Nasware 3.0 software, were all WDIDLE3 /D or disabled already...

Now I couldn't say if there may have been any issues with these differences, with the issues I've had, but I thought it was worth a mention... :)