FreeNAS Newb help picking hardware.

[eddie200112]

Ya I was planning on putting them all into one vdev unless someone tells me that's a bad idea..

 

[eddie200112]

well the Mushkin USB 16GB flash drive is what I ended up buying as it said it uses an ECC memory chip... not sure if that is standard for usb flash or not but I figured that sounds good lol

 

[Bastian Büttner]

Ya I was planning on putting them all into one vdev unless someone tells me that's a bad idea..

You have to decide whether it is a bad idea - it is your data so only you can tell how safe the data should be.

From what I know/read, it is possible to have more than 12 HDDs per vdev - many more. However, it is adviced to not do that (every RAID gets unsafer the higher the hdd-count is).

Having 12 HDDs, I see two scenarios:
a) 1 vdev consisting of RAIDZ3 12x 4 TB = 9*4TB = 36TB * 0.8 = 28.8 TB usable
b) 2 vdev consisting of 2x RAIDZ2 6 x 4 TB = 2x (4x 4TB) = 32 TB * 0.8 = 25.6 TB usable

Thoughts on both configurations:
- the throughput depends on the number of HDDs - so there should not be a significant difference
- the IOPS depend of the number of vdevs in the pool - so (b) has higher IOPS (needed for simultaneously accessing many files (typically databases))
- (a) is safe against three drive failures
- (b) is safe against two drive failures in each vdev (so there can fail 2x2 drives if you are lucky or only 2 if you are unlucky and they are in the same vdev)
Reading your questions I'd recommend to read cyberjock's guide again in all detail and take your time. I understood the important zfs-information from reading that ppt carefully.

As for HDD, guessing you are going for storage and not IOPS, I recommend against 7200 rpm drives (hotter, power consumption) and for 5XXX rpm drives.
This is because your FreeNAS is likely connected via a GB-LAN to the outside and thus offers at best around 110 MB/s.
Any RAID-Z with three drives will saturate that network link.
As for HDD brands, I can tell you one thing: All HDDs fail sooner or later.
I'd currently go with Seagate's Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000 due to the good price tag and latest reliablilty report by backblaze.
Another common choice is the WD RED 4 TB.

Good luck!

 

[eddie200112]

SO im putting together my Server and my Noctua cooler bracket for the LGA-2011 doesn't fit the mounting holes... Whats the deal it said its supposed to fit the LGA-2011-3. Is this some supermicro proprietary pattern??

 

[Ericloewe]

SO im putting together my Server and my Noctua cooler bracket for the LGA-2011 doesn't fit the mounting holes... Whats the deal it said its supposed to fit the LGA-2011-3. Is this some supermicro proprietary pattern??

There's the square mounting solution and the narrow one. You probably have the wrong one.

 

[eddie200112]

Ya figured that out at about 4am. quite annoying but I overnighted a new one that will fit. Thanks

 

[eddie200112]

OK build is working. whats the best install guide for 9.3? Like I need step by step with explanation if possible... lol. The freenas website install video left me hangin at the directory service and domain name creation wizard.

 

[eddie200112]

 

[SweetAndLow]

your heat sink is probably on wrong. You should turn it 90 degrees so you are pushing and pulling air in the same direction as the rest of the case. And for the install just skip the directory services questions.

 

[eddie200112]

YA its the only way I could mount it, I wanted it blowing to the back but couldn't.. stupid narrow ILM.

 

[cyberjock]

Umm, just gonna say that since your heatsink is 90 degrees in the other direction, you aren't providing the airflow over the heatsink that is behind (to the left of the CPU in the picture) the CPU. Yes, this is part of the specs for the design, and you are breaking them without realizing it and you are creating other problems you won't find out until you break something. There's more, but the only good solution, especially for a server you want to trust and last a long time, is to get a proper heatsink and replace it. There really is no need to buy such a massive heatsink for a server anyway.

 

[eddie200112]

which one would you suggest is good enough for a 1620 v3? One of the supermicro brand 4u coolers or is that still too much?

 

[eddie200112]

So as i noticed that my FreeNAS setup is using nearly all of my 32GB of RAM i was looking to upgrade it to 64GB.
Now this may be a very dumb question but i couldnt find and answer.
The RAM i bought before is Samusung M393A2G40DB0-CPB but i noticed there is some with the model number M393A2G40DB0-CPB0 or even with two zeros at the end that i found about $20 cheaper.
Are these the exact same products and the seller just added the zero at the end for their own use? Or are they different. Samsungs product guide didnt include what they might mean.
Thanks

 

[SweetAndLow]

If you as 64gb of memory your freenas will use all of that also. Ram is used to cache your data so you have better performance.

 

[danb35]

If you as 64gb of memory your freenas will use all of that also.

This. And it's true of any modern Unix-based OS, too--you'd see pretty much the same behavior with any flavor of Linux, *BSD, or even MacOS. ZFS might cache things a bit more aggressively, but the bottom line is going to be pretty similar. Now, if you see that all your memory is used, the ARC size is small, and the ARC hit rate is low, you might be in a situation where you'd benefit from more RAM.