New Build, is it possible?

[tobag25375]

Hello, I am new to ZFS and the FreeNAS community. I am curious about a new build. I have watched a bunch of videos and read a few articles to become more familiar. So my question is this: I do not have a current build, I am in the process of taking an old pc workstation and turning it into a NAS. I believe its usable for storage as I already have a power horse for my work system so I do not plan on using it for vm or anything other than storage. I have 4 x 6TB drives and 6 x 4 TB drives. If I understand this correctly, I should be able to create 1 vdev with 4 x 6TB and another vdev with 6 x 4TB into one pool (correct me if I am wrong). I would like to use all 4 x 6TB = 24TB for storage and have the redundancy or back up on the 6 x 4TB, or if the whole thing isnt needed for redundancy, maybe (4 x 6TB) + (4 x 4TB) for storage and 2 x 4TB for redundancy. Any help is accepted. Thanks in advance.

Dell Precision T5500 for NAS, if that makes any difference.
Intel® Xeon® 5600 series processor
12GB RAM
Quadro 4000 video card

 

[tobag25375]

Also, How do you determine how much cache will be used? I was considering using a 500GB SSD dedicated for cache. Haven't decided what to actually install the OS on.

 

[tobag25375]

Also, is it practical to partition my 500G SSD for booting and cache?

 

[KrisBee]

Your questions suggest that the following refs should help with your understanding of zfs and FreeNAS.

1. https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/zfs-pools-in-freenas/
2. https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/introduction-to-zfs.111/
3, https://arstechnica.com/information...01-understanding-zfs-storage-and-performance/

For more in depth info re: pool layouts, see:

https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/zfs-pool-performance-1/

Six Metrics for Measuring ZFS Pool Performance Part 2

Learn more about why OpenZFS (ZFS) storage pool layouts have such a significant impact on system performance under various types of workloads.

www.ixsystems.com

Keep in mind that RAID is not a substitute for backups. In zfs, there aren’t “dedicated drives” for parity like unRAID, SNAPRAID, etc. The term “cache” in the context of zfs is often misused and/or misunderstood. It’s meaning should be clearer after reading 2 above. The answer to your last question is no.

At first glance, your Dell Precision T5500 doesn’t like a good candidate for a NAS, with a chassis not built for bulk storage, etc. Perhaps you intended to transplant parts into a more suitable chassis.

 

[tobag25375]

Your questions suggest that the following refs should help with your understanding of zfs and FreeNAS.

1. https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/zfs-pools-in-freenas/
2. https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/introduction-to-zfs.111/
3, https://arstechnica.com/information...01-understanding-zfs-storage-and-performance/

For more in depth info re: pool layouts, see:

https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/zfs-pool-performance-1/

Six Metrics for Measuring ZFS Pool Performance Part 2

Learn more about why OpenZFS (ZFS) storage pool layouts have such a significant impact on system performance under various types of workloads.

www.ixsystems.com

Keep in mind that RAID is not a substitute for backups. In zfs, there aren’t “dedicated drives” for parity like unRAID, SNAPRAID, etc. The term “cache” in the context of zfs is often misused and/or misunderstood. It’s meaning should be clearer after reading 2 above. The answer to your last question is no.

At first glance, your Dell Precision T5500 doesn’t like a good candidate for a NAS, with a chassis not built for bulk storage, etc. Perhaps you intended to transplant parts into a more suitable chassis.

Thanks for the reply, I'll check those out and see if it answers my question about my configuration.

After further reading, I now understand the difference between "back up" and "redundancy". I have not read the documentation you've provided just yet, but are you able to take 1 vdev and lets say RAID2 to another vdev? or does each RAID happen within 1 vdev?

The reason I am using the Dell T5500 isn't for the chassis space. I had one laying around from an OLD 3D modeling build. Its a workstation with 2 CPUs and hell of a lot of RAM. I actually just found 32GB more RAM I may try to fit or replace. I have a 4bay mediabox that I was going to connect through eSATA as there's a built in i/o on the machine and box.