Hardware double-check please

[Schwarznavy]

Hi,
I've been stalking the forums for almost two years. I actually bought a good amount of hardware a year ago but still haven't gotten around to building the box.

Here is what I have:
Motherboard
Supermicro MBD-X11SSM-F-O Micro ATX

CPU
Intel Core i3-6300 Skylake Dual-Core 3.8 GHz

RAM
2 x Samsung M391A1G43DB0-CPB 8GB DDR4-2133 ECC Un-Buffer

Case
Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 Black Window High-Airflow ATX Midtower

Hard Drives
2 x SanDisk SSD PLUS 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SDSSDA-120G-G26
2 x WD Red 1TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD10EFRX
2 x WD Red 3TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD30EFRX
2 x SanDisk Cruzer Fit CZ33 32GB USB 2.0 Low-Profile Flash Drive- SDCZ33-032G-B35

Power
1 x SeaSonic SSR-450RM 450W ATX12V
1 x APC Back-UPS Pro 700VA UPS Battery Backup & Surge Protector (BR700G)

I still haven't fully digested the vdev, pool, raid terminology of ZFS.

1. I'm thinking of using the 1TB pair of Hard Disks for ripped videos to serve up via Plex. Don't have a huge collection. Some kind of mirroring with the Hard Disks?

2. I'm thinking of using the 3TB pair of Hard Disks for storing and serving up family VMs, possibly to a separate ESXi tower I have. Would basically hold a few browsing VMs for each person in the family. Nothing incredibly high usage. Homework for kids kind of thing. Some kind of mirroring for this two? And possibly purchase a 3rd exact kind Hard Drive for a hot spare?

3. The ESXi tower has dual NICs and can therefore be directly connected to the FreeNAS box. Is it rather straightforward to connect 1 NIC on a FreeNAS server to my switch and the other directly to a separate ESXi tower?

4. FreeNAS itself would be installed on the pair of SanDisk Cruzer Fits. Sound good?

5. I think I originally bought the SanDisk SSD MLC drives for logging or caching, but I don't believe my use cases above warrant them. Would they be better suited for jail instances of Plex and other services I might run?

Really appreciate your thoughts as I start to get off my butt and actually implement this.

 

[Chris Moore]

If you have not yet looked at this, you probably should. It will help you understand some of the terminology.

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

 

[tvsjr]

1. That works.
2. Running a VM store on FreeNAS requires some effort. You need a SLOG device (uber-fast SSD with power loss protection) for decent performance with spinning rust. You want lots of vdevs to give you more IOPS. And you don't want to fill your pool beyond 50%. If you only have room for two drives, I'd suggest getting a pair of SSDs and using that for your VMs.
3. Sure. Plug it in and give both boxes a static IP in the same subnet, no default gateway, and don't overlap your other subnets.
4. No. USB sticks suck. We see plenty of random issues on here that crop up when they die. Even a single SSD (I'm using old Intel 320s that I bought off eBay for $25) is faster and way more reliable than USB sticks.
5. They are bad SLOG devices because they don't have power loss protection. You don't have enough RAM to worry about L2ARC. And, sadly, they're probably too small for your VM pool.

 

[Schwarznavy]

Thank you. Would anything go awry with a FreeNAS install for just the ripped videos and Plex and then later trying to deal with a SLOG device and the VM store? I mean, would that require a reinstall or anything like that?

 

[Chris Moore]

You can add function later without needing a reinstall. It does not need to be all or nothing. You should plan to buy a system board that can support the future growth you anticipate. That way it can continue to be used for a longer time without needing to be replaced.
If you have other questions that have not been answered, please share them so we can help.