FreeNas Build help/advise

[fiR3W4LL]

Hello Community I'm pretty new here;) and I'm interested in a FreeNas build.
I've been a little pre-informed, but somehow I come to no clever result. Currently have a Qnap TS-453a with 4x4 TB WD Reds and 16GB Ram + an Intel Skullcanyon with different VMs over ESXi running.

My Qnap is actually used as a multimedia / datapit, there are some movies which are streamed via PLEX (Media Server). And at the Skullcanyon, were once some gameserver (The Forest / Space Engineers, etc.) + Downloadstation and TS3 server running, also has decent performance for such a small part. The Skullcanyon has 32GB Ram and an i7 4C + 4Threads and for that the QNAP has too little power especially if transcodes must. I would like to combine these two with on device that can do the same as with the 2, possibly even more power reserves for more.

I like the QNAP System but, i dont want to pay 2-3000 CHF for a decent performance.

Summary: These servers are sure to run on it: TS3, Plex Media Server, Game Server like Space Engineers, The Forest, etc. Download station and possibly 1 or 2 VM's. Storage space like expandable but currently i will stay with 4x4TB. If you need any further information I am happy to help. :)

Thank you 4 help

 

[Chris Moore]

Do you want to have ESXi to host the VMs and run FreeNAS as a VM also? How heavy is the process burden for the game server?

 

[fiR3W4LL]

Hi Chris, not necessarly! If FreeNas Support VM's what i have read, than i would work only with FreeNas!

I cant say, because Space Engineers has some Performance problems, but it worked with the Skullcanyon, not perfect but it worked!
The tool for Space Engineers starts with an exe and works only with command lines, so no gpu needed!

 

[Chris Moore]

The virtualization within FreeNAS is still a bit less capable than ESXi, but it might be able to do the job for you. The potential problem with moving to FreeNAS is that there is a totally different filesystem (ZFS) used in FreeNAS that has additional overhead because it creates a checksum for every block of data written to disk. That means you will likely need six disks to hold the data you were keeping on four. The other issue is that you will need to move the data elsewhere so the disks you have are setup in FreeNAS, then you copy the data back.

This is some documentation that you should take time to review to help you get more familiar with FreeNAS:


Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

 

[kujinke]

The virtualization within FreeNAS is still a bit less capable than ESXi, but it might be able to do the job for you. The potential problem with moving to FreeNAS is that there is a totally different filesystem (ZFS) used in FreeNAS that has additional overhead because it creates a checksum for every block of data written to disk. That means you will likely need six disks to hold the data you were keeping on four. The other issue is that you will need to move the data elsewhere so the disks you have are setup in FreeNAS, then you copy the data back.

This is some documentation that you should take time to review to help you get more familiar with FreeNAS:


Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

Well,saying that bhyve(FreeBSD virtualization) is a bit less capable than vmware would be a bit unpretentious at this point. It's like comparing a Toyota Prius to a Mercedes s class.

OP is having the exact issue I’m facing now..
It will be interesting to know how much this will affect the aspect of overhead and performance to establish a all in one box.