kriegalex
Dabbler
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2016
- Messages
- 43
Hi everyone,
First of all, I know that I often write too much when asking a question/starting a discussion so I'll try to be brief as much as possible. I'll put a TLDR at the end anyway.
I'll start by exposing what I have and why I have it that way :
I have a 14.04 LTS Ubuntu server running ZFS on Linux in RAIDZ1 with 5 * 4TB HDDs (WD Red Pro) inside a 5 slot Supermicro hot swappable front HDD bay. Ubuntu is installed on a separate SSD (250GB). This server is equipped with a Xeon 1200v3, a Supermicro X10SLL-F and 32 GB ECC RAM. As far as I've seen on this forum, this is pretty much OK and recommended hardware for FreeNAS.
Strictly speaking, it's currently overkill for what I have :
- Samba shares, timemachine backup for the network, ...
- Plex media server, 2-3 HD streams sometimes concurrently -> CPU choice made from this and samba + futur proofing
- Rtorrent+rutorrent
- Teamspeak 3 server
- VPN client (not server)
I've made that choice to have room in the future and also because I wanted my server to be multipurpose and not only a file server. An example is the teamspeak server easily installed on Ubuntu and an even better example is when the game ARK Survival Evolved launched, I was able to save ~100 bucks by not having to rent a server for a few month because I simply put it on my server. That's why I didn't go with FreeNAS in the first place and used Ubuntu+ZoL combo.
Now it has been running a few months without any problems, but what I realized is that I do everything through command line, which is precise and handy, but sometimes having a nice GUI is not bad. And that's what is offered by FreeNAS (plus the ZFS implementation on BSD is more solid than ZoL, I guess).
The problem is that I am afraid that if I install FreeNAS on it, it will be even more overkill because I loose a lot of opportunities to install additional server "stuff".
So I can already ask you this : would my server resources be wasted by installing only FreeNAS on it ?
Now the second part : virtualization. I've seen this post. I am aware that it's generally a bad idea. But if virtualization is done properly through recommended hardware and PCI passthrough and with good configs and tested for a while with "dummy" data, wouldn't it allow for me to have a VM for FreeNAS and another VM for Ubuntu and general purpose "stuff" (like teamspeak server, ...).
Now the problem is also that I'm a beginner with virtualization even if I am familiar with computer science adn programming. I would have to learn ESXi which doesn't seem too bad (installing, managing it, allocating the resources and everything).
So is virtualization really that bad ? The only other way around would be to have a second computer to run all the things that won't run on the main FreeNAS box, thing that I can't have right now. That still leaves the problem of : if I wanted a computer only for FreeNAS, I probably would have scaled down some things : maybe less expensive CPU, 16GB RAM, ITX MB, smaller case, ...
I also plan to move away from RAIDZ1 for the same reasons we can read on this forum on multiple threads. I don't know what to choose between RAIDZ2 (adding 1 HDD to my server) or maybe Raid 10 (also adding 1 HDD, to have 3 RAID1 stripped together). From what I understood, it's basically choosing between bad write performance and more storage or better IO but less storage.
TLDR : I have a server running Ubuntu and ZFS, running file server things, plex media, torrenting, teamspeak server and sometimes other things like game servers and I am wondering how to keep that multipurpose quality while using FreeNAS for the file server part. I've bought my server to be futur proof and be able to run a ton of stuff if needed, not only file sharing.
Only installing FreeNAS on my server could be a waste of resources and of functionalities because then I can't run that much more things than what is available in the plugins. I'm also wondering if virtualization could be the answer. I've seen on this forum that people advise against it. I also plan to move away from RAIDZ1 while moving to FreeNAS (RAIDZ2 or RAID10).
I wish you the best for this year 2016 :)
P.S. : Staying brief --> mission failed :(
First of all, I know that I often write too much when asking a question/starting a discussion so I'll try to be brief as much as possible. I'll put a TLDR at the end anyway.
I'll start by exposing what I have and why I have it that way :
I have a 14.04 LTS Ubuntu server running ZFS on Linux in RAIDZ1 with 5 * 4TB HDDs (WD Red Pro) inside a 5 slot Supermicro hot swappable front HDD bay. Ubuntu is installed on a separate SSD (250GB). This server is equipped with a Xeon 1200v3, a Supermicro X10SLL-F and 32 GB ECC RAM. As far as I've seen on this forum, this is pretty much OK and recommended hardware for FreeNAS.
Strictly speaking, it's currently overkill for what I have :
- Samba shares, timemachine backup for the network, ...
- Plex media server, 2-3 HD streams sometimes concurrently -> CPU choice made from this and samba + futur proofing
- Rtorrent+rutorrent
- Teamspeak 3 server
- VPN client (not server)
I've made that choice to have room in the future and also because I wanted my server to be multipurpose and not only a file server. An example is the teamspeak server easily installed on Ubuntu and an even better example is when the game ARK Survival Evolved launched, I was able to save ~100 bucks by not having to rent a server for a few month because I simply put it on my server. That's why I didn't go with FreeNAS in the first place and used Ubuntu+ZoL combo.
Now it has been running a few months without any problems, but what I realized is that I do everything through command line, which is precise and handy, but sometimes having a nice GUI is not bad. And that's what is offered by FreeNAS (plus the ZFS implementation on BSD is more solid than ZoL, I guess).
The problem is that I am afraid that if I install FreeNAS on it, it will be even more overkill because I loose a lot of opportunities to install additional server "stuff".
So I can already ask you this : would my server resources be wasted by installing only FreeNAS on it ?
Now the second part : virtualization. I've seen this post. I am aware that it's generally a bad idea. But if virtualization is done properly through recommended hardware and PCI passthrough and with good configs and tested for a while with "dummy" data, wouldn't it allow for me to have a VM for FreeNAS and another VM for Ubuntu and general purpose "stuff" (like teamspeak server, ...).
Now the problem is also that I'm a beginner with virtualization even if I am familiar with computer science adn programming. I would have to learn ESXi which doesn't seem too bad (installing, managing it, allocating the resources and everything).
So is virtualization really that bad ? The only other way around would be to have a second computer to run all the things that won't run on the main FreeNAS box, thing that I can't have right now. That still leaves the problem of : if I wanted a computer only for FreeNAS, I probably would have scaled down some things : maybe less expensive CPU, 16GB RAM, ITX MB, smaller case, ...
I also plan to move away from RAIDZ1 for the same reasons we can read on this forum on multiple threads. I don't know what to choose between RAIDZ2 (adding 1 HDD to my server) or maybe Raid 10 (also adding 1 HDD, to have 3 RAID1 stripped together). From what I understood, it's basically choosing between bad write performance and more storage or better IO but less storage.
TLDR : I have a server running Ubuntu and ZFS, running file server things, plex media, torrenting, teamspeak server and sometimes other things like game servers and I am wondering how to keep that multipurpose quality while using FreeNAS for the file server part. I've bought my server to be futur proof and be able to run a ton of stuff if needed, not only file sharing.
Only installing FreeNAS on my server could be a waste of resources and of functionalities because then I can't run that much more things than what is available in the plugins. I'm also wondering if virtualization could be the answer. I've seen on this forum that people advise against it. I also plan to move away from RAIDZ1 while moving to FreeNAS (RAIDZ2 or RAID10).
I wish you the best for this year 2016 :)
P.S. : Staying brief --> mission failed :(
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