HP ProLiant MicroServer + FreeBSD + ZFS, AFP Performance

[kesh]

In case anybody is interested, I found this blog entry (in Japanese) that reports the ZFS performance of HP ProLiant MicroServer (8GB mem, 4x2TB hdd):

http://blog.livedoor.jp/dankogai/archives/51697097.html

Here's the bottom line. iMac AFP I/O speed in different RAID configurations:

Simple Stripe (RAID0)
1073741824 bytes transferred in 3.175971 secs (338083003 bytes/sec)
Stripe of Mirrors (RAID10)
1073741824 bytes transferred in 4.497144 secs (238760829 bytes/sec)
raidz1 (better RAID5)
1073741824 bytes transferred in 5.718750 secs (187758133 bytes/sec)
raidz2 (better RAID6)
1073741824 bytes transferred in 7.782485 secs (137969019 bytes/sec)

All saturates GbE (125 MB/s) but the blogger thinks RAIDZ2 is a bit heavy for this server (fairly high write CPU load and slow resilvering process). Lastly, he comments on how quiet it is.

Apparently, HP MicroServer is pretty popular in Japan.

Kesh

 

[Milhouse]

That server is the HP Proliant MicroServer N36L.

They were also very popular in the UK at the beginning of the year when HP did a £100 cashback offer on the £212 N36L. They were an absolute bargain for £112 (I bought two!). The £100 cashback offer has been extended again and is still available as of this writing (June 2011).

I'm running FreeNAS here (two RAIDZ1 vdevs, 4GB RAM) and would agree the CPU is a limiting factor, but for home use it's absolutely fine and still more than capable of saturating a GigE connection. It would also be the ideal server for a small office (say up to 5 clients), and a number of users have had good results when running multiple VMs.

 

[kesh]

@Millhouse - that offer sure looks a lot better than the measly $10 off sale going on at 'egg!

Question. Have you tried RAIDZ2 on your microserver? If so, was it noticeably slower than RAIDZ1?

 

[Milhouse]

@Millhouse - that offer sure looks a lot better than the measly $10 off sale going on at 'egg!

Question. Have you tried RAIDZ2 on your microserver? If so, was it noticeably slower than RAIDZ1?

I did try RAIDZ2, it was fine but across only 4 disks (two of which I'd lose to parity) I thought it was an excessive waste of storage and I could live with the risk of "only" RAIDZ1 (I take regular rsync backups to a second JBOD-based server, so losing the lot wasn't a major problem). Unfortunately I didn't benchmark RAIDZ2 vs. RAIDZ1 so can't say definitively if it was slower, but it probably was. :)

I've now dropped an LSI 9211-8i controller and Intel CT NIC into the N36L plus an IcyBox 4x2.5" backplane into the optical slot... works a treat in FN8 with two vdevs (each with 4 disks), and I've still got the onboard disk controller if I want to add additional 2.5" disks (thinking maybe a couple of cheap SSD's for mirrored ZIL duties, velcro'd somewhere safe...:))

All in all, the N36L is a top notch box and if you can get it with or without cashback I simply don't understand why anyone would try to build their own small, quiet NAS server (and I built a ton of PC's for fun years ago so I understand why people do it, it's just not worth it in this case).

 

[Bohs Hansen]

All in all, the N36L is a top notch box and if you can get it with or without cashback I simply don't understand why anyone would try to build their own small, quiet NAS server (and I built a ton of PC's for fun years ago so I understand why people do it, it's just not worth it in this case).

Well, according to the terms (as far as i can find) of this cashback offer, its only valid for the UK: "This promotion is only available to end user customers based in the UK".

So that might be the reason why ppl build it them self :)

 

[Milhouse]

Well, according to the terms (as far as i can find) of this cashback offer, its only valid for the UK: "This promotion is only available to end user customers based in the UK".

So that might be the reason why ppl build it them self :)

As I said, even without the cashback it's still a great deal - it's tough finding a case (with 4 disk caddies plus cabling), PSU, motherboard+CPU for under £200 ($320?) that is also very quiet (and that isn't mentioning the 1GB RAM and 250GB disk also included, which you may or may not use, but can certainly re-use in other projects!)

 

[Bohs Hansen]

no doubt its good value for the money, and if the cashback was valid over here i'd most likely sprung for 2 of them :)

 

[kesh]

On top of that, I cannot find any other ECC-enabled MB that fits the bill (correct me if I'm wrong). As far as I'm concerned, bare PC w/o OS is virtually DIY from scratch, especially when you have to throw out memory and HDDs.