Balancing performance and resources

[NogNeetMachinaal]

For some basic development purpose I'm using Win2k3 and considering a move to FreeNAS as the main workload for this server is file sharing. I have a couple of questions which should be read as “exploring limitations and options” as I have not yet installed the software.

The designated server is based on a system board with the ancient NF4 chip set, a dual core AMD Opteron CPU and 4 gig of memory. While I'm aware that doesn't match of the minimum requirements, I still hope someone is willing to provide some feedback and perhaps even a recommendation (other then replacing the hardware :)) as I'm happy with the system performance as it is.

(1) - The server is also equipped with a Dell Perc 5i controller in a RAID-5 config which is holding a logical, NTFS formatted volume of 4 TB. I have a backup ready of this content. For booting, I use a separate, 150 Gig / 10k WD drive.
For the moment, in an attempt balancing performance and resource usage, my preference would be staying away from ZFS and only utilize these hardware RAID-5 capabilities. The line of thinking here is that ZFS seems to be software RAID and requires at least 8 gig of RAM mainly for caching reasons.
However, while the controller is in the supported hardware list, I cannot find documentation describing how to make this happen. Apparently I'm overlooking something? What would be the recommended approach?

(2) - As mentioned in the beginning of this post, the main workload is file sharing and some basic (web) development. So it would be nice if I could run a few Wordpress websites and ownCloud. On the Win2k3 server, this is done with Apache (virtual hosts) and MySQL.
It looks something like Jail is the way to go here. Based on the manual, I would expect one Jail for the LAMP stack which then runs the Wordpress sites and ownCloud within the same Jail? Alternatively I'm considering one Jail for the LAMP stack (with Wordpress) and another Jail for ownCloud.
Either way, it probably means running multiple http servers and database instances as FreeNAS itself also runs some http- and database service. What would be the recommended approach here balancing performance, resource usage and complexity?


Thank you – Will... :)

 

[no_connection]

Short answer is don't!

Long answer is please don't.

Minimum requirement is for base system only. Anything on top of that should result in more RAM added. There is no arguing around it nor should it be.
Perc RAID controller isn't going to solve that ether.

Do yourself a favor and use something like Ubuntu server with that hardware.

There are many uses and situations for FreeNAS but you should also know when to not use it.

Still there is nothing stopping you from trying, but even if you get a basic file server running, anything in (2) should absolutely NOT be added. There could be anything from maintenance scripts to background tasks that fails behind the scenes silently. And if you are lucky just crashes the service itself.

 

[Noctris]

Basically you are saying you want to use freenas but don't want to use it's single most important feature ( zfs ) on hardware that isn't up to the task (AMD, lack of ram, raid controller) to do stuff that isn't it's core function ( apache, mysql). do yourself a big favor and install ubuntu. If you are not all that savy with linux or your business depends on it -> keep the Win2K3. You don't want to have this thing go haywire and end in days of troubleshooting while you should be developing.

 

[jgreco]

The 8GB minimum has very little to do with caching, and a lot to do with the overall design of the system. ZFS was originally designed for large Sun servers, and the FreeNAS middleware is also designed around a large-system assumption. There are plenty of options on the market already for small NAS deployments, and/or you can run FreeBSD natively, or Ubuntu, or whatever else works for you.

 

[NogNeetMachinaal]

Thank you for the feedback. While perhaps not what I was hoping for it is still valuable and really appreciated! :)

For now, I will stick with Win2k3 for the next couple of weeks/months.
This enables me to earn some extra money and replace the current hardware.

 

[jgreco]

Sorry, we don't always have the happy answers.