Hello Freenas! Simple Server Build

[OiD]

I've recently decided to make a NAS for home use, and freeNas sounded great :)
Basically I'm aiming for low cost, expandable storage.

So far I have been testing FreeNas with an i3 (3,2Ghz) with 4GB of non-ECC RAM and Gb network. Top tranfer speed have been around 90MB/s (provably hitting my PC hard drive transfer limit before the network card's).

I'm using a standard Mini-ATX motherboard (Dell) and a Dell 6i/r 8 port card.
The drives are 8 5400rpm 300GB sata drives.

So far I've only had to buy the Dell 6i/r cards, everything else I had lying around.

Apart from playing around with sub-par hardware, my question is, how difficult is it to upgrade the drives in the future?

 

[Bidule0hm]

I recommend to read Cyberjock's ZFS Guide, the link is in my signature, it should answer a lot of your questions ;)

 

[Fuganater]

Ya read the stickies. Dell Perc card is a no go, non ECC RAM is a no go.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

how difficult is it to upgrade the drives in the future?

Assuming you bring the rest of the system up to at least minimum requirements, then upgrading the hard drives is straightforward.

 

[Mirfster]

Apart from playing around with sub-par hardware, my question is, how difficult is it to upgrade the drives in the future?

Aside from what everyone else has already stated, you will want to consider upgrading drives when you are creating your vdevs.

For example: If you create a vdev with six drives, if you want to upgrade those drives you can do so by replacing each drive (one at a time) and performing a resilver in between. You will not see the space increase until all drives have been replaced.

However, if your vdev is 12 drives then now you need to have/purchase 12 larger drives to complete the process.

For me, I like to run at least 2 vdevs for a 12 drive system. That consists of 2 vdevs with 6 drives in each (running RAIDZ2). That way if I wanted to upgrade the drives, I can do so with only needing to do replace 6 drives at a time instead of all 12 at once.

Hope this helps

 

[OiD]

I recommend to read Cyberjock's ZFS Guide, the link is in my signature, it should answer a lot of your questions ;)

Thanks! I'll admit I dozed of while reading it, but it definately is a good condensed source of information!

Ya read the stickies. Dell Perc card is a no go, non ECC RAM is a no go.

Its a Dell 6/iR, not a PERC. It uses a LSI 1068E and I believe (from the simple tests I've done, reading and writing files to the drive and verifing them on other computers) that it has a passthru mode. $9.50 a card. I'd like to test a larger than 2.5TB drive on it.
I have ECC RAM and a set of Xeons but they dont support ECC memory :( The i3 I have does not support it either.

Assuming you bring the rest of the system up to at least minimum requirements, then upgrading the hard drives is straightforward.

I hope to do so, while I dont want to spend lots of money on it I'm trying it out for now.

Aside from what everyone else has already stated, you will want to consider upgrading drives when you are creating your vdevs.

For example: If you create a vdev with six drives, if you want to upgrade those drives you can do so by replacing each drive (one at a time) and performing a resilver in between. You will not see the space increase until all drives have been replaced.

However, if your vdev is 12 drives then now you need to have/purchase 12 larger drives to complete the process.

For me, I like to run at least 2 vdevs for a 12 drive system. That consists of 2 vdevs with 6 drives in each (running RAIDZ2). That way if I wanted to upgrade the drives, I can do so with only needing to do replace 6 drives at a time instead of all 12 at once.

Hope this helps

Thanks for that info. I thought that there was a RAID that allowed mixed drives but... not the case. I'm guessing it would be best to start of with a couple of 2TB rather than 16 320GB drives.

 

[Mirfster]

Thanks for that info. I thought that there was a RAID that allowed mixed drives but... not the case. I'm guessing it would be best to start of with a couple of 2TB rather than 16 320GB drives.

For both standard RAID and ZFS, it is possible to use mixed drives. Only caveat is that the space used for the larger drives will be limited by the smallest drive (that sounded confusing...)

Say you have 6 drives; 5 of them are 3TB and the last one is 1TB. When you create a RAID or vdev, it will only use 1 TB for each of the six drives. The extra 2TB from the other 5 drives will not be used since you have that one drive in there that is 1TB.

Note on vdevs... You cannot add more drives to them later. You can only upgrade/replace the drives themselves. So if your vdev has 8 drives, you can't add a 9th to it.

Keep in mind that a volume can contain multiple vdevs and you can add additional vdevs to it later though.

As far as a "raid" that allows mixed drives and tries to provide the most space, that would be something like a Drobo. However, I would strongly recommend not considering them. I personally have lost tons of data and RMA'd more than a few of them. The proprietary software does not allow you to even place a drive on another unit to view data. IMO, stay clear of those. How do you think I ended up here with FreeNas... :D

 

[OiD]

For both standard RAID and ZFS, it is possible to use mixed drives. Only caveat is that the space used for the larger drives will be limited by the smallest drive (that sounded confusing...)

Say you have 6 drives; 5 of them are 3TB and the last one is 1TB. When you create a RAID or vdev, it will only use 1 TB for each of the six drives. The extra 2TB from the other 5 drives will not be used since you have that one drive in there that is 1TB.

Note on vdevs... You cannot add more drives to them later. You can only upgrade/replace the drives themselves. So if your vdev has 8 drives, you can't add a 9th to it.

Keep in mind that a volume can contain multiple vdevs and you can add additional vdevs to it later though.

As far as a "raid" that allows mixed drives and tries to provide the most space, that would be something like a Drobo. However, I would strongly recommend not considering them. I personally have lost tons of data and RMA'd more than a few of them. The proprietary software does not allow you to even place a drive on another unit to view data. IMO, stay clear of those. How do you think I ended up here with FreeNas... :D

So if I use 16 drives I'd have to buy 16 larger capacity drives, considering that I would no be able to afford (well, I'd rather spend the money on other projects actually) the drives I'd have to buy them gradually before space would be an issue in the future.... considering 46€ per 2TB drive... eh. I'll think this over. I know i need storage. I'm using 6TB now, but... ouch.

Is there a better way for an upgrade path?

 

[Mirfster]

I'm guessing it would be best to start of with a couple of 2TB rather than 16 320GB drives.

Sorry if I confused/concerned you. I was talking mainly on the part where you thought it would be best to start with a couple drives instead of 16.

In reality, it would be just fine to start with the 16 320GB drives. I would recommend that you just configure it so that 8 drives are in one vdev and 8 are in the other. That way when/if you decide to upgrade drives then you would only have to do it 8 at a time. Of course you could divide them into more vdevs as well (like 3 vdevs with 5 drives in each and one spare).

All that is up to you to decide as far as the best route. FreeNas is awesomely configurable, but there are certain "gotchas" that everyone should be aware of. All of this is excellently covered and explained by the gurus in their postings and faqs.

Take a little time and check the guides out that Bidule0hm has in his sig, it will definitely shed some light on things. :)

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Its a Dell 6/iR, not a PERC.

A 6/iR is a PowerEdge RAID Controller, i.e. PERC.

It uses a LSI 1068E ... I'd like to test a larger than 2.5TB drive on it.

Don't bother. The card works OK with FreeNAS, can and should be flashed to IT mode if you plan to use it, and for sure will only see the first 2.2TB of each drive.

 

[cyberjock]

A 6/iR is a PowerEdge RAID Controller, i.e. PERC.

Don't bother. The card works OK with FreeNAS, can and should be flashed to IT mode if you plan to use it, and for sure will only see the first 2.2TB of each drive.

+1. You have some obstacles to overcome. For testing FreeNAS and learning it's GUI and such it will be fine.. but obviously not something I'd ever recommend you put important data on.

 

[MtK]

You coukd also go for mirror vdev, 2 drives in each vdev, and the you only have to replace a pair of drives each time.

Note: it'll trigger a completely different debate now