Quick Check of Specs Before my First FreeNAS Build

[AVTechMan]

Hello, I had briefly mentioned some of the parts I have in the Introduction thread, so I want to check here to see if all will be well for my first FreeNAS build. I have used unRAID and FlexRaid in the past with good results, now to see which will be best for my enviroment.

This server will be used purely as a fileserver only, no VMs, jails or anything else since I have other servers fulfilling the VM role. Here are the components that I have for this build:

SuperMicro 4U SC846, with the SAS1 expander backplane (I have two of these chassis, so may as well make use of them). I'm gutting the old AMD server board and all its components and will recycle them as they are too old to use in anything else.

SM X8SIL-F motherboard. The X8 series can use RDIMMS which is what I have on hand

Xeon X3440 CPU

16GB DDR3 ECC RDIMMs

I know the backplane on the SC only supports 2TB drives, but for this server its pretty much all I need. Once all the bays are populated it will be about 48TB raw space. The SAS2 backplanes are hard to find and I don't want to buy another chassis that has it included. I know NAS drives are recommended, but what about SAS drives, since the backplane supports both? 2TB drives aren't as much as they used to be since much higher capacity drives are becoming mainstream.

As for the HBA, I have a Perc H310 in IT mode, and an LSI 9211-8i with the P19 firmware. Is it really necessary to update it to P20 firmware?

I was wondering if it would be ideal to up the RAM to 32GB at some point since the rule of thumb was 1GB per TB of storage. I'm going to be working on family photos and scanning those in soon so having data protection for this build will be important, but will have backups going as well using Veeam.

As for cooling I will be using the original fans that came with the chassis as well as the PSU (got a power efficient one that is quiet when the server is powered down). The fan noise isn't a bother for me on the lowest setting since its in a room away from the living areas with decent cooling.

I'm looking forward to getting into FreeNAS, and I may spin up one in a VM to see how it all goes down. Thanks for any insight!

 

[Nick2253]

I know NAS drives are recommended, but what about SAS drives, since the backplane supports both?

SAS drives are generally superior, though they will typically create more heat and vibration because they often 7200RPM+ drives.

I was wondering if it would be ideal to up the RAM to 32GB at some point since the rule of thumb was 1GB per TB of storage.

With 48TB of space, I would recommend 32GB. You probably don't need quite 1:1 given your work load.

Once all the bays are populated it will be about 48TB raw space.

What setup are you thinking? 24x 2TB drives in 3x 8-drive RAIDZ2? Stripped Mirrors?

 

[AVTechMan]

SAS drives are generally superior, though they will typically create more heat and vibration because they often 7200RPM+ drives.


With 48TB of space, I would recommend 32GB. You probably don't need quite 1:1 given your work load.


What setup are you thinking? 24x 2TB drives in 3x 8-drive RAIDZ2? Stripped Mirrors?

That sounds about right. It will be a bit pricey to get all 24 drives at once so i was thinking on getting them around 8 at a time. I would like to do RAIDZ2, and then just create the new vdevs later.

I've also decided to make a slight change on the motherboard also. I have an X9SCL-F board that has the Xeon E3-1230 (original version) that already has 16GB ECC UDIMMS on it. I discovered with the other board that the RAM I gotten for it wouldn't boot, until I discovered that it was the dual rank x4 RDIMMS. I needed the 2Rx8 sticks after testing one I borrowed from another system and it booted up. So I may just delegate the X8SIL-F for unRAID.

I know the max RAM for these boards is 32GB which should be fine for this setup. Now I am trying to decide if its necessary to update the firmware on the 9211-8i to P20 or whether its fine as is since all of my cards are on P19.

 

[Nick2253]

You want to make sure that the firmware matches the driver version. I'm not sure off the top of my head what the driver version is in FreeNAS 11.1, but I'm assuming it's the most recent one, so you'll probably want to update.

 

[ChriZ]

FWIW, the UDIMMS which work with the X9SCL motherboard will also work on the X8SIL.
The only downside is that X8SIL can go up to 16GB with 4x4GB UDIMMS, whereas it can go up to 32GB with 4x8GB RDIMMS
X9SCL can use 4x8GB UDIMMS and go up to 32GB

 

[AVTechMan]

You want to make sure that the firmware matches the driver version. I'm not sure off the top of my head what the driver version is in FreeNAS 11.1, but I'm assuming it's the most recent one, so you'll probably want to update.

I have three of the Dell H310s that have been flashed already in IT mode and the latest firmware on order from eBay and should get them by the end of the week. But I have been doing a little more pondering...

With the 24 bay chassis, instead of doing 3 pools x8 4tb drives i was thinking of going instead with 4 pools of x6 4tb drives each so would make the cash outlay a little less getting 6 drives at once.

The next thing i was wondering is that since this chassis has the SAS846TQ backplane with the individual connectors perhaps I can connect six of those to the motherboard's six ports and that way would only need two HBAs. Only problem is that there are only six ports on the MB as I need to leave at least one for the SSD boot drive. Hmm may need the 3 HBAs anyway....