FreeNAS brute-forces things and defaults to ashift=12, which is correct 99% of the time and shouldn't be that bad the rest of the time. On the ZFS side, there have been some discussions about making this more flexible and more intuitive, but with little actual forward progress, as far as I've seen.I don't recall what the exact current strategy is, but I believe it tries to optimize correctly.
Yes, my understanding was that using ashift=12 is fine for 512e and 4Kn.For a long time there was an obsession with ashift=9 vs ashift=12 because of various reasons. This has an impact on a variety of things including space consumption and performance. Using ashift=9 on 4Kn is particularly bad for performance. Several different things have been done over the years to try to make this work correctly. I don't recall what the exact current strategy is, but I believe it tries to optimize correctly.
SATA disks are generally cheaper and ZFS works fine with them. Going SAS puts you in the minority and creates some additional opportunities for trouble.
That's a rather simplistic statement. 8 is common on Intel C236 and C246 boards, 10 used to be common on LGA2011v3. AMD boards typically have 6 of somewhat more dubious quality than the Intel ones. Anything beyond that firmly puts you in either SAS controller territory (good) or weird and wonderful jellybean SATA controller territory (meh at best and atrocious at worst).Also recent mainboards come with 8, 10 oder 12 SATA ports. So I'd just use these instead of a SAS controller.
Just to be clear: SATA disks will work on SAS controllers, but SATA controllers cannot operate with SAS disks.So I'd just use these instead of a SAS controller.
Going from memory, that's a theoretical max in the framework of their flexible I/O thing. I don't think I've seen boards typically expose more than a handful of SATA channels plus maybe route one or two to M.2 slots because why not. At the C62x price range, SAS is going to be used for any serious storage that doesn't happen over PCIe anyway. You don't buy a Xeon Scalable system for your little home NAS that sits in a corner.Hi, Intel C621/C622 has 14 SATA ports. Not sure if these are OK for FreeNAS though.
You don't buy a Xeon Scalable system for your little home NAS that sits in a corner.
I'm going to say that a "little home NAS" by definition cannot have a CPU with a footprint similar to an entire Raspberry Pi. It would be a "big home NAS".It's like you're baiting someone to prove you wrong.
But these mainboards exist. For example:Going from memory, that's a theoretical max in the framework of their flexible I/O thing. I don't think I've seen boards typically expose more than a handful of SATA channels plus maybe route one or two to M.2 slots because why not. At the C62x price range, SAS is going to be used for any serious storage that doesn't happen over PCIe anyway. You don't buy a Xeon Scalable system for your little home NAS that sits in a corner.
That's not Xeon Scalable, though. LGA 2011v3 seemed to have more products for the not-quite-small NAS niche. Still, a perfectly viable board.* https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X10SRi-F It has 10 SATA ports from C612.
Well, SAS cabling might be neater and you need SAS for SAS disks. Otherwise, no.Any reason I should buy the more expensive SAS version if I do not need more than 10 SATA ports anyway?
Pretty cool board. I'm not too keen on Xeon Scalable because I can't make even begin to understand Intel's CPU lineup. And I gave it a try. It's just not worth my time to research. If you find a good resource for choosing the right CPU, they'll probably make a fine system - also, please show me the resource, because I hate not knowing things.* Or this one: https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X11SPM-TPF It has 12 SATA ports.
That's not Xeon Scalable, though. LGA 2011v3 seemed to have more products for the not-quite-small NAS niche. Still, a perfectly viable board.* https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X10SRi-F It has 10 SATA ports from C612.
Well, SAS cabling might be neater and you need SAS for SAS disks. Otherwise, no.Any reason I should buy the more expensive SAS version if I do not need more than 10 SATA ports anyway?
Pretty cool board. I'm not too keen on Xeon Scalable because I can't make even begin to understand Intel's CPU lineup. And I gave it a try. It's just not worth my time to research. If you find a good resource for choosing the right CPU, they'll probably make a fine system - also, please show me the resource, because I hate not knowing things.* Or this one: https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X11SPM-TPF It has 12 SATA ports.
Yes, the PCH on LGA115x and LGA20xx platforms is limited to a x4 PCIe link to the CPU (some generations 2.0, some 3.0).