Hardware Recommendations for Intel Server

[rmflint]

I am new to FreeNAS and ZFS file systems and need recommendations for SAS/SATA controller. The server came with a 6-Bay hot-swap cage and an Adaptec 3405/128MB RAID Controller. If my understanding of FreeNAS and ZFS is correct, I would prefer NOT to use hardware RAID. I would also like to use both SAS and SATA drives if possible since I have a couple of each already. I have seen recommendations on cross flashing the IBM M1015 but am still unsure what the best options would be given my current hardware.

Current Hardware Configuration:

Intel Chassis> SC5299DP
Motherboard> Intel Serverboard s5000XVN/XSL (I believe it is the S5000XSLSATA version)
Drive Cage/Backplane> Intel AXX6DRV3GEXP
RAID Card> Adaptec 3405/128MB

P.s. Is it safe to mix both SAS and SATA drives in the same cage?

 

[cyberjock]

Did you check out our sticky? We make a recommendation for you that is economical and very well supported...

 

[rmflint]

Did you check out our sticky? We make a recommendation for you that is economical and very well supported...

Yes, I've scanned through all of the HARDWARE stickies. This did answer my question concerning ZFS software vs hardware level raid but I could not find anything related to my current hardware setup. Can you please be more specific on which thread/sticky you are referring to?

 

[jgreco]

oh come on guys... that's a bit harsh. he's basically got an old workstation which to me reads as "server grade desktop machine"...

Your LGA771 platform is likely to be fine, assuming it has 8GB or more.

But:

1) it will probablg be madly power-hungry
2) it may be a bit slow
3) if you need to expand the RAM it will probably be ridiculously expensive
4) do NOT use the RAID card; ZFS does that for you

in theory mixing sas and sata on the same controller should work, but being an unusual configuration, expect it to be possibly problematic. hardware mfrs don't always test these things well...

 

[rmflint]

Thank you jgreco for providing helpful information specific to the hardware I currently have! Fortunately I have plenty of RAM in it at 32GB.

 

[jgreco]

Oh then definitely give it a whirl - but replace the RAID card. At worst, you'll decide there's some strike against the solution, but if you have it, playing around is free. As always, test it well before putting valuable data on it.

 

[rmflint]

Oh then definitely give it a whirl - but replace the RAID card. At worst, you'll decide there's some strike against the solution, but if you have it, playing around is free. As always, test it well before putting valuable data on it.

I have the original drive cage with no backplane which holds 6 drives and the motherboard has 6 sata ports. With that setup I can just go straight SATA with no SAS drives in the mix. Good point on the possible power consumption. I figured without the additional backplane
board drawing power it should help a bit.

 

[rmflint]

oh come on guys... that's a bit harsh. he's basically got an old workstation which to me reads as "server grade desktop machine"...

Your LGA771 platform is likely to be fine, assuming it has 8GB or more.

But:

1) it will probablg be madly power-hungry
2) it may be a bit slow
3) if you need to expand the RAM it will probably be ridiculously expensive
4) do NOT use the RAID card; ZFS does that for you

in theory mixing sas and sata on the same controller should work, but being an unusual configuration, expect it to be possibly problematic. hardware mfrs don't always test these things well...

If the SAS and SATA drives are in separate pools would that still be an issues? The backplane drive cage had two 500GB SAS drives in it so I figured I would use them. I have 4 SATA drives for my main storage.

 

[jgreco]

Not a matter of pools. Mostly a matter of electronics and maybe driver. ZFS works above the dev driver level so it will not care if you are using SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, or ST506.... in theory SAS and SATA on the same controller should be fine, but if there's something like an SAS expander in the mix some people have reported odd problems.

 

[gzartman]

P.s. Is it safe to mix both SAS and SATA drives in the same cage?

Yes. However, I would not mix the two in a vdev. In fact, I wouldn't mix them in a zpool either, but it wouldn't kill you.

I've got my primary zpool off of a IBM Server RAID M1015, which is an SAS board. I then have my ZIL cache and a secondary zpool (just for occasional zvol backup cloning) on the SATA connectors on my MB. I'm getting very good performance with this config.

 

[jgreco]

Yes. However, I would not mix the two in a vdev. In fact, I wouldn't mix them in a zpool either, but it wouldn't kill you.

Rationale? You know that ZFS doesn't care, right? There's no spindle sync or any other complications. SATA, SAS, as long as the hardware works properly it doesn't matter. You can even mix drive manufacturers, which is actually recommended if you are concerned about multiple drive losses from a bad production run. As long as the performance characteristics are reasonably similar, it is all yummy storage goodness.

 

[gzartman]

Most motherboards don't care if you mix DRAM size/manf/type, but performance suffers. Most raid boxes don't care if you mikes sizes and types of drives, but performance also sufferers.

I read a white paper recently that presented something along these lines where the impact of doing something like this is greater than the sum of its parts. I'll see if I can find it.

IMO, a vdev should be all the same type, manf, size of drive to max performance.

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk

 

[jgreco]

And as I noted, ZFS doesn't have spindle sync or really care about those sorts of things.

You don't mix DRAM speeds on a mainboard because you end up with pessimistic behaviour; specifically you are likely to end up running at the lowest speed because of the bus topology.

You CAN mix speeds of SATA and SAS drives; you may still be limited by the slowest device of course, but the fast ones will still operate fast.

But that wasn't what I was talking about and is a poor rationale. Mixing together drives of the same speed from different manufacturers does not somehow radically impact performance in the ZFS model.

 

[gzartman]

You CAN do a lot of things, but that doesn't mean you should.
For a homebrew hobbybox, knock yourself out. For any kind of box for business use I would use consistent drives in a vdev. This is just good practice.

I'm getting the impression people are saying zfs is some kind of magic holy water that will cure world hunger and save your cat from being eaten by the junkyard dog.

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[cyberjock]

Sorry. Jgreco wins this. Zfs does some cool things that makes your argument invalid with relation to disks.

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[gzartman]

Aaahhhhh. Yea.......

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