Boot devices, Satadom, etc

[markwill]

Next up my journey of discovery is my boot device. I was planning to just go with a USB drive, but that has led to a bunch more discoveries (I'd never heard of a SATADOM until 30 mins ago!). Which means more questions...

• Would I ever want anything more than a small boot drive (8Gb or more), if only used to boot?
• If I export / save my FreeNAS configuration, is there any real value in mirroring a boot drive? Putting aside automatic/remote reboots, it seems I could just pop in a new FreeNAS boot USB and restore from the configuration file, yes?
• Is the saved FreeNAS configuration independent of the boot device? For example, if I went with a USB drive initially and, for whatever reason, decide to install a SATADOM later, do I just set it up, copy the config file that came from the USB drive and reboot?
• Do SATADOM devices use SATA ports that could otherwise be used for hard disks? I ask because the board I have in mind (X10SDV-2C-TP4F ) apparently has two dedicated "SuperDOM: ports (I assume that is just SuperMicro's name for their SATADOM). Is the implication that these are ONLY used by SATADOM devices and, as such, I am not losing a SATA port I could use for regular drives?
• If I don't care about boot speed (hopefully it's a rare thing, so I currently don't), is there really any good reason to go with a SATADOM, rather than just a cheap USB drive. Oh, guess aesthetics might be one reason :)

Thank you.

Mark

 

[Chris Moore]

Would I ever want anything more than a small boot drive (8Gb or more), if only used to boot?

Since 8GB is the bare minimum, I wouldn't advise going with that. I have seen a couple cases where people had trouble with it.
I use 32GB drives for boot, just to be sure there is enough room for keeping multiple boot environements and room for the 'just in case' factor so the operating system getting bigger over time is not a worry.
I have a cron job that automatically copies my config weekly to a backup location. I still run a mirrored pair of drives for boot. Better safe than sorry.
With the saved configuration file, you can put a new boot drive in, do a fresh installation, restore the config file and be back up and running.
You don't just copy the file to do a recovery, there is an import process, but it works very smoothly. I have had to do that a time or two.
SuperDom ports also carry power for SuperMicro brand SATA DOMs. It is still a regular SATA port that you can use with a normal hard drive.
USB memory sticks have proven to be less reliable. I actually use a pair of old laptop mechanical drives for my boot pool. Speed is not the issue. Reliability is where it is at. It is easy to recover from a boot drive failure but it is a pain that can be avoided with good hardware.

 

[markwill]

I'm making progress here, with all the help....

Motherboard / CPU : X10SDV-2C-TP4F
Memory : 16Gb DDR4-2666 ECC RDIMM
Case : Fractal Design Node 804
PSU : SeaSonic FOCUS Plus 850W Gold (tentative and overkill, but yeah...)
SataDOM : SuperMicro SATA DOM 32Gb

Drives : My research continues, both in terms of desired RAIDz configuration (or maybe mirrored vdevs) and specific hardware. Thankfully I need very little space initially. Probably shooting for 4TB usable space to start with.

This is fun!!!

Thank you, Chris.

 

[Chris Moore]

Drives : My research continues, both in terms of desired RAIDz configuration (or maybe mirrored vdevs) and specific hardware. Thankfully I need very little space initially. Probably shooting for 4TB usable space to start with.

This is the model of drive I use in my server. It is not the generic "of the shelf" Seagate drive... These were sold to Dell and use a custom Dell firmware. I have been using the Dell customized Seagate drives for several years now, starting with the 500GB model, moving up to the 1TB model, then the 2TB unit and now the 4TB drives. Something about the Dell firmware appears to make the drives work better.

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I bought a 20 pack last time I upgraded, but not everyone needs that may drives all at once. This is the best price I can find for small quantities:

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I always buy a few spares to have ready for when a drive fails, because it is always a matter of when. Then when might be years down the road, but it will happen eventually with any drive. It is a good idea to keep an eye on drive health time to time so that you can see errors early and replace a drive before it can cause any tears.