First Build for FreeNAS

[kettnsaeg]

Hello fellow FreeNAS Forum Family,

my Name is Thomas and I'am still researching to build a first own FreeNAS Server.

The main purpose of this server will be to store files (oh wow, he really will try storing files in a NAS ) from my own computer (meaning Pictures and Web-Projects etc.) and - mainly - to house additional backups of my business server. I do want to add, that our amount of data is growing sloooowly. Additionally this is not our single type of backup, there are daily offsite backups aswell (means money is a concern in this matter and we're not even in bigger trouble if both - NAS and our regular server fail).

I therefore am looking mostly towards the snapshot (ransomware) and anti-file-corruption features of ZFS/ FreeNAS. I'd be planning to get to about 20-30 TB RAIDZ2 storage for business and extra pool of mirrored 4TB WD Red for myself (which i already own).

I have following two options with my own thoughts on (dis-)advantages for the NAS server:

Fujitsu Primergy RX500 S7

• CPU: 2 XEON E5-4620
• RAM: ~128 GB DDR3 RDIMM ECC RAM
• HBA: Fujitsu Raid Controller SAS 6 D3116 - of which I read, that it really is a rebranded LSI SAS2208 (which I believe was an "OK" controller if flashed to HBA/ IT-Mode)
• Chassi & Backplanes: as sold... 4U Fujitsu Chassi with
  • 8x 2.5" SAS Hot-Swap slots
  • could maybe (!!!) case-modded to 16x 2.5"...
  • ...I believe that there was some room for airflow on purpose....)
• Hard drives... I do not know yet... puh... 2.5" does not yet provide reasonable prices per gigabyte as I've seen so far....
  • 8-9x 2.5" SATA Drives are Seagates with 4TB <--- as I've read this is kinda the max adviced hdd's in a zvol
  • did not really find reasonable prived 2.5" SAS with more than 2TB storage

Disadvantages: 2.5" SAS Only... I'd like to be able to house several .vhd backups of our server - means I need capacity..., older system, power hungry
Advantages: much RAM, infact enough ram to maybe add this advanced "no double files" feature (?)

Own built from "left-over" Hardware:

• Chassi: Chenbro RM31616 (including Backplane)
• CPU: Xeon E3-1245 v6
• RAM: 32 GB DDR4 ECC RAM
• Mainboard: Supermicro X11ssh-LN4F
• HBA: not yet bought.... maybe a H220 flashed to IT Mode as Chris Moore said to be using in his own home FreeNAS build?
• Storage... and again, I am not sure yet.
  • SAS Seagate HDD 10TB with 5 disks for 30TB storage? <--- i'd prefer this one
  • SATA Seagate HDD 8TB with 8 disks for 24TB storage? <--- rather "prosumer" HDD

Disadvantages: less RAM, maybe backplane incompatibilities (i dnno...)
Advantages: less Power Consumption, hardware more up-to-date....

Now to my questions:

• Which of the Setups would you prefer?
• Would you prefer SAS to SATA even when theres no real (planned) need for simultaneous reads and writes?
• What do you think of the Raid Controllers (HBAs), I do really not know much about these yet, but flashed to HBA these should work?!?
• Would you put more RAM in the second configuration?
• And finally... whats your opinion on storing business and private data on different (z)pools but on the same server? <--- I'd rather be opposed

Thank you all verry much for your continuing support in this forum, it's been verry interesting to read all your posts to ZFS and FreeNAS! I hope I RTF(reeNAS)M good enough! Have a nice weekend!

PS: Do the VM capabilities of FreeNAS suffice to test backed up server .vhd's from time to time?
PS: And as I haven't yet thought about it: is booting from a sata SSD from the SAS backplane an option? The Primergy Server has no own SATA ports.

Thomas

 

[Snow]

I like Supermicro Chaise and boards and they are well supported on the forums. I would say take the Chen-bro chaise and upgrade it with a motherboard that can handle more memory. Does not need to be a X11 but you have a Cpu for it may want to look at X10/X9 Boards as they can be bout cheap. I run a X9/X8 Boards and with 25 Drives it runs around 350w a Hour the X8 system is around 400W with 8 drives. I run all my files on the same server, different shares. Also I run a full rscyn back up of my primary files. It is all got to do with how you set ur snap shots up. You can run ur boot off the backplane.

 

[2nd-in-charge]

• HBA: Fujitsu Raid Controller SAS 6 D3116 - of which I read, that it really is a rebranded LSI SAS2208 (which I believe was an "OK" controller if flashed to HBA/ IT-Mode)

SAS2208 cannot generally be flashed to IT mode (there are some reports of on-board Supermicro SAS2208 cross-flashed to SAS2308, but there is no guarantee that Fujitsu card can be cross-flashed). That said, my IBM M5110, which is a SAS2208 card, works OK in JBOD mode in FreeNAS 11.2, providing direct access to drives with smart monitoring. It's not recommended yet though, because of lack of testing undergone by the mrsas driver.

 

[Snow]

You could Ebay a new one for under $30, Unless you want a SAS2308 Based Controller. But you really do not need this as you are not going disk crazy to saturate the controller anyways.

 

[kettnsaeg]

Thanks to both of you for your replies.

I did get a reasonable priced, refurbished Supermicro X9DRD-7LN4F-JBOD (as I found other builds with this board on this forum, e.g. danb35) in a Supermicro 826BA chassi. I struggle to find the correct part Number for the chassi, therefore the link might be slightly wrong.

Reading up on other threads I figured that the motherboard has an acceptable controller - which already is in IT mode - and could upgrade to insane amounts of RAM. Maybe @danb35 could answer a question if he's reading - is it recommended (or possible) to update drivers on this onboard Broadcom 2308 controller?

The Chenbro Chassi was kinda oversized for my needs so I'm still happy with 12 LFF bays (a cool detail on this chassi is the upgrade-kit for two 2.5 SSD bays in on the back of the chassi, which I am going to put the boot-drives in without having to sacrifice LFF-bays).

One other thing I want to note is the following: getting SMART-data out of Seagate ST8000MN0075 SAS drives seems to yield only little information.

 

[danb35]

is it recommended (or possible) to update drivers on this onboard Broadcom 2308 controller?

It is both recommended and possible to update the firmware to the most recent release (20.00.07, IIRC). The process is the same as for an add-in card, and is well-documented here.