I give up, please help

[cardona1068]

The thing about hard drives is, the internal transfer rate (mechanical speed) is usually limited to between 150MB/s and 250MB/s... Either of those speeds are much less that the 6GB/s of SATA or SAS2. Which means that there is not much reason to have a faster controller, like SAS3, especially if it is more expensive.

correct me please, if you use 3 computers to stream from a NAS the speed of the transfer is divided in the 3 computers. therefore the speed of the SAS3 would be divided in 3. compared with the SAS2 it would be much faster?

 

[Chris Moore]

correct me please, if you use 3 computers to stream from a NAS the speed of the transfer is divided in the 3 computers. therefore the speed of the SAS3 would be divided in 3. compared with the SAS2 it would be much faster?

Network speed is split by the number of clients, true, and that is one of the reasons that servers are often connected to network infrastructure with 10GB, or faster, network links. That allows many clients to access the server at the full speed of the client. The thing about SAS is, the SAS controller is not the limiting factor. The mechanical speed of the drive is the limiting factor, the SAS2 controller (on PCI2 2.0) is able to transfer data to the system faster than fast enough to saturate a 10GB network link. The number of drives and the configuration of the array has more influence on the speed than the SAS controller.
It was only a month or so back that I explained all this in detail to someone else. You should search the forum because all of this has been discussed many, many times. Depending on the model, an individual hard drive can transfer data between 120MB/s and 250MB/s to the computer despite the fact that the SATA (or SAS) interface is able to go faster, because of the mechanical process involved in reading the data. The max speed of a 1GB network connection (in MB instead of GB) is approximately 125MB/s. That means, a single hard drive can pretty much keep up with the speed of the network. Unless you are going to use 10GB networking, which is another discussion, the reason for using many disks is to protect the data, not really about the speed of access. Now, if you are going to 10GB, the max network speed (because of overhead in the protocol and other factors) is around 990MB/s and the only way to keep up with that is to add more disks, because the individual disk is the bottleneck, not the speed of the controller.

PS. The 12GB speed of the SAS3 controller, means that it has 12GB/s of bandwidth on each SAS lane and most of the controllers have 8 lanes.
The 6GB speed of the SAS2 controller provides 6GB/s to each lane also (times the number of lanes) but if you have a PCIe 2.0 interface to the system board, that becomes the bottleneck and you can't go faster than the system bus.

 

[cardona1068]

Thank you so much for the info, Can you comment on this please "So based on this post from FreeNAS "FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide" I found this motherboard Supermicro X11SSL-F" base on this post "So you want some hardware suggestions" I found this RAM "Kingston Technology Micron A Server Memory (KVR24E17D8/16MA)" Supermicro does not have Kingston as a recommended RAM but FreeNAS does. My question is, is this a good brand and RAM? or should I go with supermicro recommendation? also, what are you thoughts on this motherboard?"

 

[danb35]

My question is, is this a good brand and RAM? or should I go with supermicro recommendation?

Either should be fine. Or go to crucial.com, plug in your motherboard there, and get whatever 16 GB stick they recommend.

 

[cardona1068]

Either should be fine. Or go to crucial.com, plug in your motherboard there, and get whatever 16 GB stick they recommend.

reading some post in order to put together a good NAS. any suggestion are welcome.

 

[Chris Moore]

reading some post in order to put together a good NAS. any suggestion are welcome.

Did you buy hardware yet or are you still doing research? Do you have specific questions because you have already received a load of advice?

 

[cardona1068]

Did you buy hardware yet or are you still doing research? Do you have specific questions because you have already received a load of advice?

Hi Chris, Yes all the advice has been very helpful. I don’t think I would have been able to figure out on my own. Still researching but I’m leaning towards this setup:

1) SUPERMICRO MBD-X11SSM-F Motherboard

2) Intel Xeon E3-1230 V5 3.4 GHz LGA 1151 80W BX80662E31230V5 Server Processor

3) Kingston ValueRAM 16GB (1 x 16GB) DDR4 2400 RAM (Server Memory) ECC Micron A DIMM (288-Pin) KVR24E17D8/16MA

4) Avago LSI SAS 9207-8i 8-port, 6Gb/s SAS+SATA to PCI Express Host Bus Adapter

5) (X8) WD Red 3TB WD30EFRX

6) Corsair RMi Series RM750i 750W 80 Plus Gold

This is what think would be a good NAS. I have not purchase the Motherboard, Processor, RAM and the Host bus adaptor yet. I do have doubts of the motherboard (what is your opinion?)

 

[cardona1068]

Did you buy hardware yet or are you still doing research? Do you have specific questions because you have already received a load of advice?

Hi Chris, about to purchase some of the parts mention in my last post. any suggestions or can you comment on it?

 

[Chris Moore]

Hi Chris, about to purchase some of the parts mention in my last post. any suggestions or can you comment on it?

Sorry, I didn't see this before now. That all looks good to me. I don't see any problems with it. What did you choose for a boot drive?

Also, don't forget that you will need some of these cables to connect between the SAS card and the hard drives:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-SAS-S...Hard-Drive-Splitter-Cable-3ft-CY/172794590042

 

[cardona1068]

Correct me if im wrong, but isn't FreeNAS run on a flash drive? if so I have a 32gb thumb drive. is that big enough?

 

[cobrakiller58]

32gb should be fine, it can also be run from an HDD or SSD I use two mirrored 32gb SSDs currently.

 

[cardona1068]

Thank you for the advice but, why mirror the FreeNAS OS software?

 

[danb35]

why mirror the FREENAS OS software?

Because USB flash drives are notoriously unreliable. Mirroring them will protect against some forms of failure.

 

[toadman]

Just an observation on the thread...

(1) Something seems amiss... the OP said in the first post, "I have watched weeks’ worth of videos and read months’ worth of NAS systems and FreeNAS and I don’t get it." I suppose that's possible, but I find it hard to believe given the subsequent posts. MONTHS of reading on NAS systems and FreeNAS?

(2) My opinion on (1) not withstanding, the thread is a great example of the community helping a perspective user to get into a system and run this awesome software! Well done!

 

[cardona1068]

Because USB flash drives are notoriously unreliable. Mirroring them will protect against some forms of failure.

then a mirror flash drive it is. thanks

 

[cardona1068]

Just an observation on the thread...

(1) Something seems amiss... the OP said in the first post, "I have watched weeks’ worth of videos and read months’ worth of NAS systems and FreeNAS and I don’t get it." I suppose that's possible, but I find it hard to believe given the subsequent posts. MONTHS of reading on NAS systems and FreeNAS?

(2) My opinion on (1) not withstading, the thread is a great example of the community helping a perspective user to get into a system and run this awesome software! Well done!

I am thankful for all the advice given not only to me but all readers. Not all individuals are capable of reading and understanding certain concepts of technology, of those including me (I read like a fifth grade and understand what i read like a first grade, now on the other hand I can observe something once and do it 100 time with my eyes closed). fortunately i can come to experts like yourself and all those that have help me with my (and maybe other readers) questions and understand better without seeing it in person.

 

[cobrakiller58]

snip* "I have watched weeks’ worth of videos and read months’ worth of NAS systems and FreeNAS and I don’t get it." snip*

that statement would be accurate for me as well I spent many many many hours researching on storage technology on my trip from my simple windows xp share to my system today and there is still a mountain of stuff I don't understand lol the first thing that springs to mind is Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters but that's reading for another day.

then a mirror flash drive it is. thanks

a single respectable name brand SSD is a better idea than a mirror usb flash drive in my opinion, it will last you longer, install faster and update between versions faster. I happened to find two 32gb on sale but a 64gb or 120gb won't be much more expensive and should last even longer than my 32gb will.

 

[toadman]

the first thing that springs to mind is Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters but that's reading for another day.

Understood. At least you are reading up! Yea, a host bus adapter in practical terms just means "an expansion card." And typically it just connects some type of I/O system to the motherboard. So typically PCIe on the "host" side (i.e. plugs into a PCIe slot on the board), and something else on the "outbound" side. Could be fibre channel (which is a high speed network technology), could be SAS (typically for connecting disks/SSDs inside the host), could be ethernet (another networking technology). You hear about fibre channel a lot when reading about storage because it is (was) used a lot for block storage networks (SAN) due to the speed. You could connect many servers to a SAN with good performance.

 

[VioletDragon]

I give up, I screw up and I don’t get what parts go with what. I have watched weeks’ worth of videos and read months’ worth of NAS systems and FreeNAS and I don’t get it. Please help. I thought I bought the right parts and components but NOOOOO. This is what I got

1) Fractal Design Define R4 Cases FD-CA-DEF-R4-BL (for the X10 hdd)

2) 2) Asus Z97 Gryphon LGA 1150 Micro ATX (thought that the tough was going to help, NOT)

3) Intel Core i3 -4130T 2.9GHz LGA 1150 (if I’m not wrong the T is for NAS)

4) LSI 9361-8i SATA SAS 12GB/s RAID CONTROLLER CARD RARE 2GB VERSION w/ BBU (Grate card but base on what I read I can not do Raidz2 with it!!!)

5) Corsair Vengeance 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 NON-ECC (tataraaaa NOT)

6) X10 Western Digital Red 3 TB Internal 5400RPM 3.5" WD3001FFSX NAS (THE only smart choice I have made!!!)

7) Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250gb (for cach, just don’t know what exacly that is just read I need one)

8) Sandisk Cruzer 32GB USB 32 GB Flash Drive

9) VGA SuperNOVA 80+ PLATINUM 650W, Fully Modular Power Supply 220-P2-0650-X1

Based on what I have read “ASROCK or Supermicro Motherboards” are the most common motherboards for NAS. Here’s my problem. There is hundreds of each brand that I don’t know with would perform best for my purpose. For the x10 hdd I have the LSI 9361 but how do I connect 10 hdd with only 8 connections on the card and second can it be made to do raidz2? I know I need 1gb of ECC ram for each 1 tb of hdd but I don’t know witch ram is comparable with the RIGHT motherboard (ASROCK or Supermicro). What I wish to accomplish is a NAS system (price can be adjusted to what’s reasonable) that can storage and safely data, movies pictures and more to be able to access through my network to any device (phone, tablets computers TV) from any ware in the world. I know I need the right components to do FreeNAS, raidz2, ZFS, PLex. Please help.

My NAS doesnt have ECC RAM I don't have no issues. Your motherboard should be perfectly fine. Just make sure you run scrubs & backup to some type of a server. You need a HBA card although some LSI Cards can be flashed to IT mode which passes through the disks as SATA not RAID. Ive recently installed a LSI Card which is a Dell Perc H310 which I've flashed to IT Mode works perfectly fine.

 

[toadman]

My NAS doesnt have ECC RAM i dont have no issues. You're motherboard should be perfectly fine.

No issues that you know about anyway. Which is the point of ECC. It's another check on the system to make sure you don't have data corruption. If your data is in the ARC and a bit flips and is then read, well, there is data corruption you don't know about.

ECC is not necessary. Obviously the system will run. But it is recommended for a reason, and we should be clear about that point to folks new to FreeNAS.