FreeNAS for iSCSI NAS

[pamiller3]

Hey all,

Looking to use some spare parts to build a FreeNAS and use it for an iSCSI VMware NAS. It should have the following:

Intel q9550 quad core
12g ram
6 3tb 7.2k drives
ASUS P5P43TD

I will be running several VMs around 6 to 10, is this enough power or would a cheap SSD help for cache (or is that possible?)

Thanks all for the help and advice,
Andy

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[Dice]

Hello.

That CPU is 9 years old. I wouldn't have too high hopes for it to perform any magic. However, FreeNAS isn't super CPU intensive but 9 years old CPU is really pushing it. Passmark score wise, it is on par with recommended low buck CPUs. I'm not convinced FSB throughput is sufficient to not bottleneck. Typically recommendations point to avoid FSB driven CPUs due to performance.

On the other hand, RAM is hugely impactful for user experience & performance. Running 10VMs I'd rather be looking at 32-64GB.
The vdev configuration would be mirrors.
SSD for cache - look up ZIL&SLOG among other notable reads (link in my signature).

 

[pamiller3]

I'm a little confused about the RAM need. I need somewhere in the range of 32gig to be on the Nas to host these VMs? I mean the VMs are going to be on other servers resource wise, but stored on the Nas. Is 32 gig really the minimum?

Also I feel like a dunce, where is you signature?

Thank you!

 

[Stux]

16GB tends to be recommended as a minimum for iSCSI use. It should work with 12 though.

 

[Inxsible]

Also I feel like a dunce, where is you signature?

Signatures don't show up if you are on a mobile device. A laptop/desktop will show you the signatures below every post on the forum.

 

[Stux]

Signatures don't show up if you are on a mobile device. A laptop/desktop will show you the signatures below every post on the forum.

If you rotate to landscape view you see the sigs

 

[Ericloewe]

If you rotate to landscape view you see the sigs

Depends on how big the phone is.

 

[pamiller3]

Depends on how big the phone is.

Thanks all going to start the install now and see how it goes

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