Jails in USB / SSD / SATADOM / HDD / DataSet ?

[bhadreshl]

So, I'm new to FreeNAS and after weeks of research, I finally hunkered down and bought a system: X10Sl7-F / Xeon-1231V3 / 2x8GB DDR3 ECC / 2x2GB DDR3 ECC / 1x6TB HGST / 1x6TB WD Red / 1x16GB SATADOM / 1x16GB Lexar USB3 / 1x16GB
Currently, I'm still tweaking/learning the installation and configuration. I tried freeNAS in Proxmox VE but eventually decided against it after reading the recommendations.

So currently, I'm running FreeNAS directly. However, I still want the ability to run VirtualBox or some other VE from FreeNAS.

Anyways, I trusted the hardware recommendations and purchased a SATADOM-16GB (Supermicro); especially since I'm trying to conserver power.

PREVIOUS CONFIGURATION: configA
ada0 - 16GB-SATADOM - freenas-boot (+ system dataset + Syslog + RRD)
da0 - 16GB-LexarUSB3 - freenas-jails

I was watching the disk activity with 3 plugins (unconfigured/unused) and it was much higher (3x write; minimal read). So I started thinking of future use which plugins/jails are definitely going to increase.

I realize this has been discussed extensively (https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/where-is-best-to-install-the-plugin-jail.10039/) and the recommendation is still in the dataset in the main storage pool.

CURRENT CONFIGURATION: configB
da2 + da3 (mirror) - 2x16GBUSB for freenas-boot -->mirrored for redundancy / failover
da0 - 16GB-SATADOM - jails + system dataset

1) Currently, I'm trying configB. I may still revert the jailroot to main storage pool. Can you please comment / validate configB?
2) Since I've heard freenas-boot gets loaded into RAM, there are maybe no performance implications. Is an SSD/SATADOM necessary for boot vs USB?
3) Will mirroring the freenas-boot make it any faster for booting? My concern is only reliability, but just curious.
4) Can I resize the SATADOM swap partition to make it smaller? I have only found threads with increasing swap size. Any performance implications to smaller swap?

Thanks for reading and any input is welcome...

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Can only help you with two:

2) Since I've heard freenas-boot gets loaded into RAM, there are maybe no performance implications. Is an SSD/SATADOM necessary for boot vs USB?

You read the HW recomendations, so you would know that it is reccomended to use a USB or SATADOM. Therefore i don't really understand why you are asking if a SATADOM is a necessity?

3) Will mirroring the freenas-boot make it any faster for booting? My concern is only reliability, but just curious.

Nope. (And you shouldn't care, since a NAS is typically on 24/7 :) )

 

[Ericloewe]

1) Currently, I'm trying configB. I may still revert the jailroot to main storage pool. Can you please comment / validate configB?

I'd use a real SSD for jails and the .system dataset.

2) Since I've heard freenas-boot gets loaded into RAM, there are maybe no performance implications. Is an SSD/SATADOM necessary for boot vs USB?

Operations like messing with old boot environments or upgrades are painfully slow on most USB devices. DOMs are faster. SSDs are best, but overkill for most. Even USB drives are "ok".

3) Will mirroring the freenas-boot make it any faster for booting? My concern is only reliability, but just curious.

Boot is fast enough even with USB devices. Not an issue.

4) Can I resize the SATADOM swap partition to make it smaller? I have only found threads with increasing swap size. Any performance implications to smaller swap?

I only know a hacky way of doing this, which I'm not going to describe since some people might forget a crucial step that will then screw them over (in their main pool). 16GB just sounds a bit too small for jails+.system dataset.