Budget rackmounted hardware in 2019

[digs]

I finally settled for a Supermicro SuperStorage 6027R-E1R12L with 2x E5-2650, 128GB RAM and a LSI 9211-8i
Wish me luck, I never installed FreeNAS on a SuperMIcro board (done it multiple times on Dell C2100s).
Any advise will be immensely appreciated.

What did you end up spending for both of these? Would you mind linking to them?

Is the intent that you'd forfeit existing hardware to accommodate the LSI 9211-8i?

 

[Chris Moore]

What did you end up spending for both of these? Would you mind linking to them?

Is the intent that you'd forfeit existing hardware to accommodate the LSI 9211-8i?

The eBay items I suggested were :
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro...-24-x-HDD-Storage-Server-W-Rails/173688157339

The OP was looking at this item instead because they wanted to be in a 2U chassis:
https://www.wiredzone.com/supermicr...bone-dual-processor-ssg-6027r-e1r12l-10022230

You can usually get more server for less money purchasing hardware through eBay, but it does require some knowledge of exactly what you are getting involved with as far as hardware capability and software compatibility.

In the initial post regarding my eBay suggestions, the idea was to remove the hardware RAID controller (LSI 9266-8i Array Controller) as it is not compatible with FreeNAS and replace it with a SAS HBA, such as this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-H220-6Gbps-SAS-PCI-E-3-0-HBA-LSI-9207-8i-P20-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162862201664
The LSI 9207 is a newer chipset than the LSI 9211. The 9211 is PCIe 2.0 where the 9207 is PCIe 3.0. The additional performance is important if you plan to use SSDs but you would not see any difference in performance with 24 or fewer disks involved in the storage pool.

 

[Chris Moore]

What did you end up spending for both of these? Would you mind linking to them?

Is the intent that you'd forfeit existing hardware to accommodate the LSI 9211-8i?

If you want to get suggestions that are correct for your needs, you should start your own thread and explain what you want to accomplish. There is a massive amount of experience between the various members of the forum. Someone can certainly help you.

 

[HoneyBadger]

I already decided to get WD RED SATA Drives for that server, but Im having second thoughts and I wonder if I should get SAS instead. The server comes with two 920 Watts PSU. Price of the SAS is similar to the SATA and I think the backplane and HBA supports SATA or SAS.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here against @Chris Moore and say that if the SAS drives are close in price (in my searching I actually found that they were cheaper for certain models like the Constellation ES.2) I'd opt for those so that you have the option of going dual-expander in JBODs down the road for redundancy reasons.

You'll also gain some benefits under simultaneous read/write workloads and long queues (both of which ZFS likes to do) due to the full-duplex nature of SAS. As Chris pointed out It's not going to make them any mechanically faster - even the fastest spinning rust is still spinning rust and subject to the laws of physics on random seeks - but it might make them behave better under a sustained load. You'll still want to run burn-in testing to weed out any early failures of course.

That's only if they're close in price though; if you're under direction to buy from Vendor X and they're trying to stick you with an extra $50 to get a SAS interface, roll SATA.

 

[Chris Moore]

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here against @Chris Moore and say that if the SAS drives are close in price (in my searching I actually found that they were cheaper for certain models like the Constellation ES.2) I'd opt for those so that you have the option of going dual-expander in JBODs down the road for redundancy reasons.

No argument from me. Dual link between the host and target is the thing that makes SAS rule. It does have some additional cost involved in implementation though.

 

[Dotty]

No argument from me. Dual link between the host and target is the thing that makes SAS rule. It does have some additional cost involved in implementation though.

Does FreeNAS Support dual controllers? (Im not sure if FreeNAS is agnostic to it or there are special considerations). I wouldnt do it on this particular time, but Id love to try it on lab. I could get a couple of recommended SAS and two cards, and perhaps give it a go and see, it might be a good thing to have in the future.
Now, back to SAS, I used to run Seagate Cheetah and they were nooooissy, even on idle, they were spinning all the time and with a high pitch. How are the new generation SAS in your opinion?

 

[HoneyBadger]

Does FreeNAS Support dual controllers? (Im not sure if FreeNAS is agnostic to it or there are special considerations). I wouldnt do it on this particular time, but Id love to try it on lab. I could get a couple of recommended SAS and two cards, and perhaps give it a go and see, it might be a good thing to have in the future.
Now, back to SAS, I used to run Seagate Cheetah and they were nooooissy, even on idle, they were spinning all the time and with a high pitch. How are the new generation SAS in your opinion?

Regarding multipath, FreeBSD supports it devices natively and the FreeNAS GUI will let you build pools from the resultant devices.

From the noise perspective it was probably that the old Cheetah drives were 10K or 15K. It was the RPM that made those drives loud, not necessarily the interface. SATA vs SAS at 7200rpm will sound the same; although in most cases the fans will drown them out in any rackmount chassis.

 

[Chris Moore]

Most of the modern SAS drives use the same mechanical hardware as the SATA drives, so 7200 RPM is pretty standard. The day of 10k and 15k spinning disks is probably done because SSDs are so much faster that there is no demand for fast spinners.