BUILD I'm convinced I need something better

[katit]

Ok, I do have my first "build" - in signature. And it works. Some quirks but it works so far. Problem is - there is older drives(5 yo) and I don't get performance I want to get out of it (full gigabit network on write or read).

So. Reading through all of the posts and stickies I have pretty decent plan on what I need. Here is my requirements and key points:

1. I don't need lot's of storage, right now I have 600Gb, but because of the size availability and possible future demands I may go for more.

2. I don't think I will run some crazy jails, just crashplan backup and _maybe_ PLEX. I've read review on what is performance like of FreeNAS Mini, so I'm convinced CPU is not a problem. I really want less heat and electricity useage, but again, I don't want to go too low.

3. There won't be many users. It's for home. Couple PC's backup, family media storage. Document storage. I know 2Gb NICs is not like I will be getting 2x Gb speed. But I'd like to maybe get Gbit on each of 2 clients if they need.

4. I have rack at home with all the equipment and having rack-mounted server will be very cool.

All in all. Not too much data, not many users. But need fastest IO possible and reliability. I don't think there is anything "for growth". I just want this system to be able to fill network in both directions I/O

Here is what I came up with hardware-wise.

1. Case. As per recommendation, I scanned eBay for Supermicro servers, picked up 2U from eBay, I know nothing about them but I like this one. 8 hot swap bays - plenty for me. But what about power supplies? I plan to get nice fans to replace originals, but what about Ablecom brand? Are they OK?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...554?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25a8955b9a
$200

2. Drives. I don't need more than 4TB. And won't in coming future. So, I was thinking 2x WD RED 4TB in a mirror. But striped mirror RAID 10 (what is it in ZFS?) should be faster, right? It calls for 4 drives. Does it make sense to go with 4? How much faster?

Also, I have 3x 1TB WD Blacks and 1x 2TB WD Green older and laying around (2 of them in use). So, I like to put them all in and maybe build some JBOD as separate volume for junk like torrents.. Basically, for data I don't care to lose. I don't need ALL the space from them, so if I want most performance, how would I go about building volume?

3. Motherboard. X10SL-F. Picked this one for built-in LSI controller (will re-flash), it should give better IO, right? Or, for 8 drives I can go with cheaper MB?

$250

4. Memory. Crucial, 16Gb recommended in X10 memory topic. As I mentioned, size of data is less than couple TB, so 16Gb should be plenty. I can always upgrade if needed, for now I see no reason to spend extra. Especially that it's easy to add.

$150

5. CPU. How much is enought?? I was thinking G3220, but will it work on this MB without BIOS upgrade? I really don't care about PLEX, I tend to go with decoding on client end, so just IO needed. No encryption. Maybe compression, but probably not since there is plenty of storage.

But still on a fence.. Suggestions?

$55

6. Boot drives - Sandisk 16Gb in mirror. I already have them.

7. Anything I miss and need to add?

Thank you for any suggestions and help.

 

[MtK]

2. If you data is smaller than 1Tb, you coukd try creating a mirror from 2 of the 1Tb drives, copy the data to them, and add the used disk as a second striped, mirror pair. This way you would have a raid10 alike setup...

 

[Ericloewe]

2. Drives. I don't need more than 4TB. And won't in coming future. So, I was thinking 2x WD RED 4TB in a mirror. But striped mirror RAID 10 (what is it in ZFS?) should be faster, right? It calls for 4 drives. Does it make sense to go with 4? How much faster?

RAIDZ2 is safer and will still easily saturate GbE.

Also, I have 3x 1TB WD Blacks and 1x 2TB WD Green older and laying around (2 of them in use). So, I like to put them all in and maybe build some JBOD as separate volume for junk like torrents.. Basically, for data I don't care to lose. I don't need ALL the space from them, so if I want most performance, how would I go about building volume?

If data safety is a non-issue, stripe them.

3. Motherboard. X10SL-F. Picked this one for built-in LSI controller (will re-flash), it should give better IO, right? Or, for 8 drives I can go with cheaper MB?

X10SL7-F, you mean? It's the most popular option for more than six drives. LSI SAS 2308 vs Intel PCH SATA is a wash, performance-wise.

I was thinking G3220, but will it work on this MB without BIOS upgrade?

Yes.

The G3220 is probably enough for your needs. Consider an i3 if you plan on doing more than basic filesharing.

 

[katit]

RAIDZ2 is safer and will still easily saturate GbE.

This MB has 2 ethernets. If both will be used and 2 clients connected reading and writing? Will RAIDZ2 saturate it?

Example, Mac backing up to time machine share and another computer writing large file.. Again, if RAID1 is enough for what I need performance-wise - I'm propbably going to go with that..

X10SL7-F, you mean? It's the most popular option for more than six drives. LSI SAS 2308 vs Intel PCH SATA is a wash, performance-wise.

Yes, this is the one. I already have 6 disks minimum (if I go with simple mirror above)...

The G3220 is probably enough for your needs. Consider an i3 if you plan on doing more than basic filesharing.

I really don't like to get more than what I need. Hopefully someone with real life examples will comment on where they had CPU issue running G3220. Even CPU in my signature below seem to be doing just fine writing to compressed dataset and streaming PLEX at the same time...

 

[Ericloewe]

This MB has 2 ethernets. If both will be used and 2 clients connected reading and writing?

Doesn't work like that, unfortunately.

If you want more than GbE to a small number of clients, you'll need 10GbE.

 

[katit]

Ok, I guess I'm not understanding something. Why there is 2 ethernets then? Why there is 4 port ethernet cards? Sorry if thats a stupid question..

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Why there is 2 ethernets then?

One example would be if you were building a firewall, you would have WAN on one and LAN on the other.

 

[Ericloewe]

Ok, I guess I'm not understanding something. Why there is 2 ethernets then? Why there is 4 port ethernet cards? Sorry if thats a stupid question..

You need a lot more clients before link aggregation is worth the trouble, around 10.

Think of the second Ethernet port as a failover in case something happens to the first one.

 

[katit]

Got it. Any comment on case I posted in original post?

 

[sfcredfox]

You might want to ask some questions of the seller to find out specifically what back plane is in there if you care. Fortunately for me, I got one that had the SAS2826EL1, which basically has a built in SAS expander. It connects all 12 drives with one 8087 SAS port. You can look at that as good or bad depending on what the systems design is, but that could matter if you're planning on using the MB's onboard ports. Not sure if you can reverse cable a 8087 to SATA splitter for that??

There's a post around here, probably by jgreco about the differences in supermicro back planes and their naming.

 

[katit]

Actually I already got case. But I went with 4U
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/my-1000-build.35561/

And indeed it has SAS2 backplane. I will use reverse breakout cable to connect MB directly to backplane. I know boards with SAS2 connector exists, but I went with one recommended in hardware suggestions topic..

 

[Ericloewe]

You might want to ask some questions of the seller to find out specifically what back plane is in there if you care. Fortunately for me, I got one that had the SAS2826EL1, which basically has a built in SAS expander. It connects all 12 drives with one 8087 SAS port. You can look at that as good or bad depending on what the systems design is, but that could matter if you're planning on using the MB's onboard ports. Not sure if you can reverse cable a 8087 to SATA splitter for that??

There's a post around here, probably by jgreco about the differences in supermicro back planes and their naming.

You can't use an SAS expander with a SATA controller.

 

[sfcredfox]

You can't use an SAS expander with a SATA controller.

Right, that's why I ask. I didn't specifically buy the system knowing what it had in it, it was dice roll. Probably most other people are smart enough to ask first. It's fortunate that I got the one that suited me best by chance.

I'm guessing OP's 4U chasis has the BP that's a 1-to1 on ports/connectors? I know there's one that has them grouped right? A 8087 for for slots. And then another BP where each drive slot has it's own port?

It's funny how you can get a chasis for so cheap, but if you wanted to specifically buy a back plane, those by themselves are expensive.

 

[Mr_N]

With such small storage requirement, why not make a mirrored volume with SSD's ?

 

[Pheran]

I'm fairly confused by this whole thread - the proposed build looks like massive overkill for the storage requirement.

 

[katit]

Maybe. Bat if you look at requirement where it has to be rack mounted - it starts to make sense

 

[MtK]

Maybe. Bat if you look at requirement where it has to be rack mounted - it starts to make sense

Disk type/size (or even amount) has barely anything to do with mount type...

If (very) high performance is not your main concern, and for file/plex server it shouldn't, I'd still recommend going with at least 6 drives making a raidz2 vdev.
If you don't want to invest a lot of money, you can buy very small drives, and upgrade them later, without having to necessarily destroy the pool...

 

[katit]

I understand that but I have certain requirements in my head... Also, it seems like different people respond to different quotes :) Pheran said it seems like massive overkill for my requirement. I'm assuming he is talking about Case/MB combo, because there is nothing else in there that can be called "overklill". Thats why I responded about case. And since this case got SAS2 backplane it's super-convenient to connect it to MB with one cable, hence MB selection.

raidz2 sounds good, but I don't want to spin 4 extra drives. Not mentioning spending money on them. Mirror is OK for me. I'm starting with 2x 4TB drives. If I feel I need more - I will get 4 more and then build raidz2. But for now I'd rather save some electricity.

At least with my current hardware I can do any kind of storage config combo when my needs grow.

 

[rogerh]

You will of course need somewhere to store your data if your new config is going to make use of your existing pair of disks.

 

[katit]

Yes, absolutely. I thought about it :) It will happen when I hit 2-3TB mark. And I will hit it only if I start doing torrents.