BUILD New Freenas Build....

[xCatalystx]

Currently have a small NAS box that handles our storage along with a few other box's doing bits and pieces (homelab). Looking to replace my storage host with something more flexible.

Freenas will have the following roles: CIFS/NFS/iSCSI/Plex

Things to Note:

• Currently Important data is backed up off site
• After the initial month or so of the system working, the old nas will become a replica of non important data. (such as media)
• I have a UPS
• Live in Australia, so pricing and part availability will need to be taken into account.

What I Need:

• 2x Intel NIC's supporting LAG/VLAN's
• 8TB usable redundant storage
• Low Power and Quite.
• IPMI - Would be a Bonus
  
• Decent IOPS for homelab as i do alot of self learning and hate wasting time on super long loading.
• Transcode 2 1080p Streams using Plex

The Future:
Once we change house, I plan to (at some stage) move the componets to 3U/4U case to support more drives and fit neatly into the rack. This is why i have chosen the X10SL7-F over the X10SLM-F for future expansion.

Current Specs Im Looking At:

• CPU: Intel Core i3 4160
• MOBO: Supermicro X10SL7-F
• RAM: 2x 8gb Crucial CT102472BD160B
• HDD: 6x3TB HDDS RAID10/RAIDZ2
• CASE: Fractal Design Mini / Fractal Design R4
• PSU: Seasonic G-360 / Seasonic G-550 / Seasonic P-400 Fanless Platinum 460W V2 (FREE)

Questions:

• Should i go for the Mini or the R4? I do not plan to extend storage until we move, at which point i will change case (as mentioned above). So in that respect the Mini is the right size ( uATX should fit correct? )
• Not 100% sure if this is the best choice for ram?
• For VM's, would raidz2 be fine with decent ram, or would it be worth going raid10? Both meat my space requirement.
• Thoughts on Fanless PSU? I have a 400w seasonic that was pulled from a 6month old machine. Would it be worth using considering its modular, low power and efficient?
• Any other suggestions before I finalize?

Thanks For Your Time

edit: Update Build and Situation

 

[marbus90]

You didn't read the guides in the stickies...

Short notes: virtualizing freenas is evil and you need at least one individual non-Intel SATA controller to pass the disks to the FreeNAS VM, but you shouldn't use the virtualized freenas for VM storage.

Best bet would be smartOS or self-learning with FreeBSD if you want to combine ZFS with virtualisation or get a dedicated virtualisation box.

 

[xCatalystx]

You didn't read the guides in the stickies...

That;s incorrect, i did indeed read many off the stickies including https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...nas-in-production-as-a-virtual-machine.12484/

Rule #6 makes it very clear, that it can be done fine using Pass-through (and strongly recommends using server grade hardware). I may have never done a All-In-One type box before, but passing through hardware should not make it any different to freenas running bare-metal. If im flashing a raid controller to just act as a HBA there is no reason why it should not work correctly yes?

CPU should be plenty if i give it 2-4 vcores and 12gb of ram (to start with)

Im happy to be proven wrong as im not expert on freenas; but all my research points me to that belief.

 

[marbus90]

I won't stop you. It is not advised, any way around. God kills a kitten everytime someone uses virtualized FreeNAS in production.

However, if you just need to virtualize debians, use the virtualbox jail. if you can move the applications to BSD, use the jails.

 

[xCatalystx]

Well the plan was once i get 32gb I would move my windows server vms. Kind of need esxi for training aswell.

 

[cyberjock]

Well the plan was once i get 32gb I would move my windows server vms. Kind of need esxi for training aswell.

Then you are putting the importance of ESXi "for training" above your data. That's fine, but that's not supported around here as we aren't here to support training. We're here to support storing data safely, which VMs are not.

 

[mjws00]

Since the warnings are in place. Passthrough the 2308. Practice your esxi/baremetal transitions and recovery scenarios. Give FN lots of ram and don't over allocate resources. Basically follow jgrecos guide and be willing to support yourself. It's an extra layer of risk.

Feeding esxi it's own vm disks is another layer that adds more complexity and your even less likely to get support for issues there. If you've read everything, use good hardware, and demonstrate competence people will still throw you a bone and help out. Transition to baremetal for troubleshooting and testing is trivial if you do things right.

Keep good backups and understand there will be no crying or whining. ;)

Your build is great. But I'd max the ram on day one. Good luck.

 

[xCatalystx]

First of Thanks for the replies. You guys probably don't get told that enough with all the stuff you deal with (i would know, moderate/support several forums)

We're here to support storing data safely, which VMs are not.

I was under the assumption that if you followed all the best practices in the guidelines in the forum it would be fine. By training i meant more running VM's inside of esxi that would be used for learning purposes, not esxi itself. I deal with esxi most days at work so im quite happy to set and forget.

Keep good backups and understand there will be no crying or whining. ;)

That's the plan.

Your build is great. But I'd max the ram on day one. Good luck.

With Christmas coming up i've been allocated limited funds under penalty of death

OK lets shift gears for a moment. Assuming I go bare-metal at this stage, If i go with the xeon now for the extra power for plex, if i wanted to reuse the xeon later on when i had more money for a separate esxi host (mobo/ram/etc); would a i3 be sufficient to max out both NICs with freenas only handling NFS/CIFS?

Also any recommendations on a PSU would be great.

 

[mjws00]

The i3 will transcode 2-3 streams. NFS is rarely cpu bound. Samba threads connections so likes a fast clock speed. Usually doesn't get cpu bound before 10gb nics are in play.

Seasonic psu's are the popular choice around here and excellent. 450-550w is where I'd land but with only 6 drives pretty much anything will do.

 

[DKarnov]

You have a Socket 1155 Xeon listed with an 1150 motherboard. If you go Xeon, go with a V3.

 

[xCatalystx]

So after some thinking and discussion with a few of my colleges and partner, i think i'll change my plans abit. The plan is once we move house to have everything setup in a rack (rather than all over the spare room :p), but right now that is not viable. I will run a dedicated server for storage, and a separate one for esxi/hyper-v or whatever.

Revised build listed above. I'm ready to take a beating =)

Looking forward to feedback because i wanna get a start on ordering before x-mas so i have a project.

 

[DKarnov]

The hardware seems fine for your updated scenario. The 400w fanless PSU should be plenty. Picking between the Mini and the R4 is a matter of style and (as you mentioned for Australia) availability and cost. The R4 just got replaced with the R5 so you may be able to find one on closeout discount (and you can get it in white, which may work better with the aesthetics of your spare room.) Whichever one you pick, I would recommend upgrading to a second front-panel fan, for optimum HDD ventilation.

 

[xCatalystx]

Thanks DKarnov.

OK Final Touches:

Ram: 2x 8gb Crucial CT102472BD160B (seems to be called CT2KIT102472BD160B as a kit) should be a safe bet correct?
RAID: Any further advice on my question above regarding my raid setup.

 

[xCatalystx]

Just a followup question. Just finished burn'in for the hardware over the last week but I have a question.

I saw 9.3 was out so i decided i would do a fresh install. I noticed a new alert compared to 9.2 saying that the firmware does not match the driver. (firmware 19, driver 16). Should i be worried about this before i put live data on?

When i flashed the LSI controller to IT i used the latest firmware off the supermicro website.

 

[mjws00]

Roll it back to p16. You need to match the lsi firmware to the FreeNAS driver. Here is the p16 IT firmware for the 2308. You'll need the -f option to force the rollback.

 

[xCatalystx]

under your advise i have flashed v16. Had already downloaded a copy but thanks for providing it for me anyways. This community is full or thoughtful people =)

Had one last query actually. Everything is up and running. Performance is maxing both my links and I've tested a drive failure and the recovery process was very successful.

I've setup quite a few jails, but it would be nice if i could bridge some of these to use the Freenas IP rather than assigning there own (for a few this makes more sense). Whats the best way to do this? Im pretty network savvy but as mentioned this is my first FreeBSD system.