Folks,
Have a couple of hardware questions, been doing a lot of reading of threads here and elsewhere, and I am a bit confused. The end goal is to build a large NAS NFS only device used to store archive data, and the NAS devices would be replicated across data centers.
Config summary: Looking at using Dell R610 nodes with 96GB ram and local HDD's for FreeNAS, and using the other 2.5" bays with SSD drives for ZIL and cache. Inside each of the R610's would be 2 x LSI SAS 9205-8e (http://www.lsi.com/products/storagecomponents/Pages/LSISAS9205-8e.aspx), each card would have dual connections to a SuperMicro JBOD 837E26-RJBOD1 (http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/3U/837/SC837E26-RJBOD1.cfm).
1. With the cost of SAS drives still being stupidly expensive, I was thinking of using an enterprise class SATA 6gb HDD. However I keep reading that using SATA HDD's inside SAS JBODS is a bad thing and will cause problems with ZFS? Something about SAS expanders, etc. What am I missing or not understanding?
2. Would having the ZIL and cache on another controller/backplane inside the headnode R610, cause performance issues?
3. I know I would not get multi-pathing with SATA when FreeNAS supports it, but the idea is to use a more cost effective HDD (SATA), until SAS came back down in price. Is there a huge performance hit on 6GB SATA vs 6GB SAS, if so, do you think it would be noticeable?
4. Is there a most cost effective way to do these builds, other hardware I should be looking at, or other configurations?
Thanks folks!
Have a couple of hardware questions, been doing a lot of reading of threads here and elsewhere, and I am a bit confused. The end goal is to build a large NAS NFS only device used to store archive data, and the NAS devices would be replicated across data centers.
Config summary: Looking at using Dell R610 nodes with 96GB ram and local HDD's for FreeNAS, and using the other 2.5" bays with SSD drives for ZIL and cache. Inside each of the R610's would be 2 x LSI SAS 9205-8e (http://www.lsi.com/products/storagecomponents/Pages/LSISAS9205-8e.aspx), each card would have dual connections to a SuperMicro JBOD 837E26-RJBOD1 (http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/3U/837/SC837E26-RJBOD1.cfm).
1. With the cost of SAS drives still being stupidly expensive, I was thinking of using an enterprise class SATA 6gb HDD. However I keep reading that using SATA HDD's inside SAS JBODS is a bad thing and will cause problems with ZFS? Something about SAS expanders, etc. What am I missing or not understanding?
2. Would having the ZIL and cache on another controller/backplane inside the headnode R610, cause performance issues?
3. I know I would not get multi-pathing with SATA when FreeNAS supports it, but the idea is to use a more cost effective HDD (SATA), until SAS came back down in price. Is there a huge performance hit on 6GB SATA vs 6GB SAS, if so, do you think it would be noticeable?
4. Is there a most cost effective way to do these builds, other hardware I should be looking at, or other configurations?
Thanks folks!