First FreeNAS box - "set it and forget it" suggestions.

[cyb3rdyn3]

Greetings,

I'm looking to build my first FreeNAS box.
I plan to use this box to store my documents, music, pictures, and videos.
I have a Drobo that I will be using to backup the most critical files from the FreeNAS box.

My idea is to build the box the right way and "set it and forget it (mostly)."

Thus, I'm opting to max out my RAM to 32 GB.
Do I really need a dedicated ZIL drive if I have 32 GB of RAM?

Here is what I plan to purchase:

• Intel Core i3-2120T Sandy Bridge 2.6GHz LGA 1155 35W
• GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H LGA 1155 Intel Z77
• Western Digital Red WD30EFRX 3TB (x5)
• G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB)

Any comments or suggestions? Thanks!

 

[ben]

A dedicated ZIL will only help you at all if you plan to use NFS and then only if you have a very fast drive and can write faster than your disks possibly could on their own. (TLDR probably not).

 

[cyb3rdyn3]

A dedicated ZIL will only help you at all if you plan to use NFS and then only if you have a very fast drive and can write faster than your disks possibly could on their own. (TLDR probably not).

I plan on using ZFS; RAIDZ1 or RAIDZ2 I haven't decided.

So is this a good choice in hardware? Do I need anything else?
I also plan to use this box for NZB downloads.

 

[ben]

With 5 drives? 5 is an optimal drive number for RAID-Z1, so that would be a fine choice. (RAID-Z1 optimal drive counts: 3, 5, 9; RAID-Z2 optimal drive counts: 4, 6, 10)

And I did mean NFS, not ZFS, when I said under what circumstances a dedicated ZIL would help you - it helps with synchronous writes, which NFS uses and CIFS does not.

 

[cyb3rdyn3]

With 5 drives? 5 is an optimal drive number for RAID-Z1, so that would be a fine choice. (RAID-Z1 optimal drive counts: 3, 5, 9; RAID-Z2 optimal drive counts: 4, 6, 10)

And I did mean NFS, not ZFS, when I said under what circumstances a dedicated ZIL would help you - it helps with synchronous writes, which NFS uses and CIFS does not.

Will 5 drives with RAIDZ2 be okay even though if its not optimal?
How bad will performance degrade with RAIDZ2 with 5 drives?

So just to make sure I do not need a ZIL drive for using RAIDZ with 32GB of RAM?

Anybody else have any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[ben]

You really don't need a ZIL, indeed on 8.2 a single ZIL device is a huge liability because it's a single point of failure for all the data on the entire pool (this is fixed in 8.3). What type of RAID you're using is irrelevant for the ZIL, what matters is what services you're using and it doesn't sound like you're using any that would benefit from a ZIL.

As for RAID-Z2 with 5 drives, it's sub-optimal but it won't cause data loss or crashes, just somewhat reduced performance - you're already losing some of your performance because you're giving up another disk to parity, and I'm given to understand that sub-optimal drive counts will reduce that somewhat further, though I don't know by how much. If you can add one more drive to that set to make it six (because you don't need a ZIL, for example), that's definitely recommended.

One thing you didn't list hardware-wise is the FreeNAS boot USB key, but that's fairly trivial, you can use any 4GB USB drive you have laying around as long as it's not likely yto get knocked out of the slot.

 

[cyb3rdyn3]

I would love to add 6 drives, however, the motherboard I chose only has 5 SATA III ports.
If I were to add another drive, it would be on a SATA II port.

Now, let me pose another question....is this overkill or pretty standard?

 

[ben]

You're slightly above average. We usually see 16GB RAM, 4 large disks.

 

[Child]

Well - before going RAIDZ2 with 5 drives, I would try to get 6 drives into the machine and do two RAIDZ1 VDEVs with three drives each and combine them into one Zpool-Volume. FYI: SATA-II vs SATA-III: Shouldn't make a differnce with standard Harddisks.

EDIT: Good Info - https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57989017/FreeNAS Guide PDF.zip

 

[Stephens]

I don't want to get off track, but someone may read this later. How is that better than a 6-drive RAIDZ2? Lose 2 drives in the same vdev in the scenario you outline and ALL your data (both vdevs) is lost.

 

[Child]

I am aware of that.
I don't know about performance with RaidZ2 and 5 drives - I just know that RaidZ1 with 4 drives is ... slow. With my suggestion one would get more performance out of the six drives compared to a six drive Z2 and at the same time having a higher fault tollerance opposed to a 5 drive Z1 setup.

 

[cyberjock]

Well - before going RAIDZ2 with 5 drives, I would try to get 6 drives into the machine and do two RAIDZ1 VDEVs with three drives each and combine them into one Zpool-Volume. FYI: SATA-II vs SATA-III: Shouldn't make a differnce with standard Harddisks.

EDIT: Good Info - https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57989017/FreeNAS Guide PDF.zip

Please link to the thread and not the posting. If something happens and I change the link the thread will be updated and not your posts. ;) Thanks!